Dog in the Manger
by LucretiaDecoy
Summary: Yukina finally finds her brother – a fire demon born of the ice village – but his name isn't Hiei. When the mysterious stranger appears to be genuine and rapidly forms close bonds with Yukina and Kuwabara, Hiei and Botan set out to investigate who the imposter really is, uncovering some startling information about all of their lives along the way. Rating may go up.
1. Yukina's Brother

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein (with a few minor exceptions), they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

Cue the beginning of another oh-so-long HieixBotan lovefest.

Like all the others I've written, this fic will not take itself seriously, there will be shades of Austen and Bronte, too many references to popular song lyrics to keep track of and a wee dash of M Night Shyamalanesque shenanigans.

Unlike all my previous YYH fanfics, this one does contain quite a high OC content, and the reasons for that will be very apparent even by the end of this first chapter.

* * *

**Chapter 1 – Yukina's Brother**

Mukuro's fortress was the pinnacle of perfection. It was dark, it was a veritable maze of criss-crossing corridors that a fool could easily lose themselves for days trying to navigate, and the air within the fortress was drenched with the odours of blood, death and decay, making it like a more concentrated version of the already acrid air that pervaded every part of demon world. The walls pulsated and throbbed, the truly elite and most violent and relentless of warriors all resided there and were on-hand for a bloody sparring session whenever so challenged, and the whole operation was run by Mukuro herself, who, thanks to her typically holding back or restraining large amounts of her true strength and ability, was arguably the most powerful demon ever to have existed. It was as though all the truly best and most impressive things about demon world and demon life had been condensed down into one building: and Hiei was a key part of it.

Walking through the corridors at a leisurely pace, his sword softly clanking against his leg and the hirui stone hanging from a chain around his neck rolling from side to side beneath his shirt, Hiei was contented to find himself alone. He had just finished a shift on the border patrol, which had involved travelling around the patrol route – the long road that ran around the periphery of demon world – and, even though his shift had been uneventful, the journey itself still took three days to complete. After three days of being cooped up with three of the dullest guards imaginable conducting an uneventful patrol, Hiei was more than a little bored, and so he had decided that the first thing he needed to do was find someone to fight. Before sleeping, before bathing or even before changing his clothes, Hiei really just wanted to add the scent of fresh blood to the scents already hanging around him; which currently included only the typical scents of the interior of Mukuro's fortress and the mildly offensive scents of his own sweat accumulated over the last few days.

And so, when Kirin stepped out into his path, Hiei allowed himself a crooked grin.

"Hn, your timing is oddly appropriate," Hiei addressed him. "I hope you're well-rested. I've been working the patrol for three continuous days without food or sleep and I'm a little tired, so I'd say that should make us about even, provided you're currently at your own personal best."

Hiei stopped in front of Kirin – who stood at easily twice Hiei's height – and looked up at him expectantly.

"You're especially lucky that I'm feeling generous today," Hiei added. "I'll let you choose the location for our combat and I'll even let you have the first shot for free."

"That's very funny Hiei," Kirin monotonously replied. "But I'm not here for myself. I'm here on behalf of Lord Mukuro. She's requested that you join her in her chambers immediately."

Hiei's grin widened to near painful proportions.

"Yes," he hissed. "A battle with Mukuro would be far more fitting – she is, after all, the only opponent truly worthy of my skill."

"…Okay," Kirin muttered.

He stepped aside and Hiei continued past him, only vaguely curious as to why Kirin continued to follow him as he made his way to Mukuro. Moving at a much quicker pace than before, fuelled by his zeal to engage in an intense session of physical violence and bloodshed, Hiei quickly reached his destination, his by then maniacal grin faltering slightly when he entered Mukuro's chambers and found three of her top guards already present. When Kirin followed him in and closed them all into the room, Hiei's grin faded further, and his eyes darted about the others in frustrated confusion.

"I would say I'm surprised that it took so long for you to get here, but since you've been so busy lately, I suppose only a fool would find your tardiness to be an unforeseen outcome."

Hiei turned his attention to Mukuro upon her words, his grin vanishing entirely. She looked genuinely angered and disappointed – and whilst her anger (the source of her ultimate power) was usually something he relished seeing, her disappointment was something he never enjoyed witnessing – and he noticed then that she was holding a remote control in one hand and an envelope in the other.

"What the hell is all this?" Hiei growled, glancing around the other guards present before fixing his eyes onto Mukuro again.

"You took the words right out of my mouth, Hiei," Mukuro flatly replied. "I thought you and I had an understanding. I thought we had come to an agreement about your affairs with regards to your friends. I don't appreciate you lying to me and I don't appreciate you taking advantage of my men and my trust and I really don't appreciate you making a fool of me."

Hiei growled in frustration and balled his fists at his side.

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" he snapped irritably.

"I'm talking about what you've been doing the past few days and where you've been," Mukuro calmly replied, the look of anger still present on her face and the distinct air of disappointment still painfully evident in her stance.

"I've been doing my duties the past few days in the places I am meant to do them," Hiei said.

"I see," Mukuro said, nodding her head. "I thought you were working a shift on the border patrol these last few days. I thought that was your duty. Apparently your loyalties lie elsewhere, however."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Hiei roared, the last remaining shred of his patience vanishing.

Mukuro stepped up to the desk she was standing on the other side of, turning the envelope in her hand upside-down and emptying the contents out onto the desk surface. She flung aside the empty envelope and then spread the papers out across her desk before pointing at them and glaring at Hiei expectantly. He watched her for a moment longer before approaching the desk and lowering his eyes to what she had placed there. At first he could not see what she was so irate about: all he could see was a selection of monotone photographs of a patrol unit performing their duties. After a second scan of the photographs he readied himself to tell Mukuro, in no uncertain terms, how irrational she was behaving: but he stopped short as his eyes landed on a photograph of himself tearing his sword through the chest of one of the patrol guards.

Hiei slowly reached a hand out towards the photograph, his eyes locked onto it unblinkingly. As he picked up the picture, he saw that the demon attacking the guards was undeniably him: a sword-wielding demon with a shock of spiked black hair in an attack stance Hiei had been using since he could stand upright. Hiei moved his eyes from the photograph in his hand to the others still splayed over the desk, his eyes widening slightly as he then noticed that he was in every one of them. He slowly picked up each photograph in turn, finding depictions of himself physically fighting an entire border patrol unit, disabling every one of the officers.

"This is a mistake," he said quietly, holding up the last photograph towards Mukuro.

"You're damn right it is," Mukuro replied, her tone dangerously low.

Hiei looked up at her and shook his head.

"This isn't me," he said, shaking the photograph at her. "This isn't me in these photographs. Do you think this is me? How can you possibly think that this is me?"

Mukuro snatched the photograph from his hand and held it up for the others in the room to see.

"Don't make a fool of me, Hiei," she said, her tone still low and threatening. "I know this is you. What I want to know is why. I told you before, if you need to go to the living world to see your friends or your sister, you can go. I don't even place restrictions on when or how long you go and yet you still felt the need to behave this way. You abandoned your duty as a patrol officer, attacked your colleagues, over-powered them, and stole away to the living world like an irresponsible child."

"Don't call me a child," Hiei growled.

"You've behaved like one," Mukuro growled back, before slamming the photograph down onto the desk. "You've humiliated me and made a mockery of the patrol! You clearly have no respect for your fellow officers, for the spirit of the border patrol or for me to do something this inconsiderate and reckless."

"You're the one being inconsiderate!" Hiei blurted out as his anger flared. "I already told you that's not me in those photographs! The guards in those photographs are not even from the same unit I was on patrol with! Ask the men who were with me and they'll agree that this could not possibly have been me!"

Mukuro narrowed her eyes but appeared to regain some of her calm. Hiei assumed that he had got through to her with his last statement: it was a very rare thing for him to be accused of carrying out a rotten scheme that he was not actually guilty of committing, and so being on the defensive as a falsely accused innocent was generating some unusual feelings within him. He felt relief – something he rarely did – when Mukuro's expression softened into a smile.

"For someone who has worked the border patrol for close to two full years, I thought you might have planned this a little better," she said. "Anyone else might have considered that neither the time nor the location were correct for what you did."

"What?" he muttered, relief giving way to confusion.

"But then again, forward planning and consideration never were your strong points, were they Hiei?" Mukuro asked, holding up the remote she was still holding in one hand.

Hiei moved his eyes to the remote, wondering what it had to do with him. Was he being accused of having stolen it? What was happening?

"You attacked the guard unit and fled to the living world right next to the tournament arena during news week, you dumbass!" Mukuro snapped. "Koto caught the entire thing on camera!"

"What?" Hiei echoed.

Mukuro pointed the remote at a screen mounted in the back wall of her office and the screen flickered to life, showing a patrol vehicle stopped beside the tournament arena. Koto had obviously been running with the camera as the film was bouncing and flickering and changing perspective almost constantly, but even though the quality of the film was poor, the events depicted were unmistakeable: Hiei watched in silent, slack-jawed horror as he flicked about the screen with his usual, deft speed, cutting down the guards with a combination of sword swipes and punches laced with black flames. Once he had downed all the guards he paused long enough to look about himself, at one point looking directly at the camera. The shot zoomed in on his face and his crimson eyes narrowed as they looked directly into the lens. Koto apparently then panicked, as she could be heard yelping off-screen and the shot dropped to the ground, which bounced around as she apparently ran away. After several awkward seconds of footage of the ground, the camera swept up again in time to show Hiei scaling the side of the patrol vehicle and launching himself through the open portal to the living world.

As the video turned to static, Mukuro – and the rest of her guards present in the room – turned to Hiei expectantly.

"How can you think that was me?" Hiei said.

"Because it very clearly was you," Mukuro flatly replied. "How can you continue to deny it, despite the overwhelming evidence of your guilt?"

"I'm not guilty!" Hiei insisted. "Ask the others who were in my unit: I did not leave the vehicle I was working in for three solid days!"

"Hiei, I'm very disappointed in you," Mukuro said.

Hiei's eyes doubled in size: the only thing worse than hearing what she had just said was seeing the look on her face which confirmed that she truly felt that way.

"I expected so much better from you," she continued. "I trusted you. I was prepared to forgive your actions if you had been prepared to take ownership of them, but in light of your arrogant lies and unwillingness to stand by your stupid mistake like a real man, I'm going to have to let you go."

"What?" Hiei roared.

The others in the room all took a step back, leaving only Hiei and Mukuro standing by the desk.

"It's not a decision that I've come to lightly," Mukuro said with a sigh. "But I can't keep you on if I can't trust you."

"This is ridiculous!" Hiei said.

"Excuse me," Kirin said, stepping forward. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but there is just one thing–"

"Damn right you're sorry!" Hiei snapped, rounding on him. "Shut your mouth and stay out of this!"

"I think you'll want to hear what I have to say, Hiei," Kirin calmly replied.

"I already know what you have to say, Kirin," Hiei spat back. "You're going to ask for my position as Mukuro's second in command. I haven't even left yet and already you're moving in to steal my position!"

Kirin waited until Hiei had finished speaking before moving his gaze to Mukuro.

"Sir, could you rewind that video and start it again?" he said.

Hiei tore his sword from its sheath and pointed the tip at Kirin's throat. Kirin calmly pinched the tip of the blade between his thumb and forefinger and pushed it to one side.

"If you watch the video again, I think you'll notice that it's not actually Hiei attacking those guards," Kirin said, giving Hiei a slightly tiresome look as he spoke.

"I find that hard to believe," Mukuro said. "But I would like it to be so, and so I will do as you ask, Kirin."

As she rewound the video Hiei slowly lowered his sword and Kirin withdrew his fingers from the blade. Hiei kept his sword in his hand and he gave Kirin one last disdainful glower before they all turned to the screen to watch the video one more time. Hiei sneered as he again saw himself darting about faster than the lazy lens of the camera could follow.

"There, pause the video!" Kirin said suddenly.

Mukuro responded immediately, pausing the video on the shot of Hiei standing looking directly at the camera, just before Koto had zoomed in on his face. It was a full-body shot of Hiei standing next to the front end of the patrol vehicle. He was standing still and tall, his feet shoulder-width apart. The black cloak that draped over his upper body and ended below his knees obscured most of his shape from scrutiny, but his bandaged right hand could just be made out at his side, clutching the hilt of his bloodied katana. The bandana around his forehead looked a little grubby and the white streak that arced around the his front section of hair looked a little askew as his hair was slightly ruffled from all the manoeuvres he had just performed.

But, Hiei thought bitterly as he stared at the screen, there was no mistaking that he was looking at his self.

"Damn, you're right, Kirin…" Mukuro muttered.

Hiei's eyebrows shot up in an involuntary show of his surprise.

"It looks exactly like him, but there you can see it's not him," Kirin said.

"Yes, of course," Mukuro agreed.

Hiei squinted at the screen, beads of sweat forming at his temples as he felt a little foolish for not being able to see what Mukuro and Kirin apparently could: it seemed absurd that they could tell the figure in the video was not him but he could not.

"See his shoulder is the same height as the top of the grill," Kirin said.

"And in actuality, he's barely taller than the top of the grill," Mukuro said.

"So whoever that is can't be Hiei," Kirin said.

"Because he's about seven inches too tall," Mukuro said.

Hiei's face dropped.

"I thought I noticed the difference when he hopped up the side of the vehicle and when he jumped at the portal too," Kirin added.

"Yes," Mukuro agreed, restarting the video and watching the remainder. "Yes, I see… His legs are clearly too long, the strides he's taking and the angle he launches himself into the portal at… Yes Kirin, you're right. That can't possibly be Hiei."

As the video finished and the screen dissolved into a sea of static again, Mukuro turned to look at Hiei.

"It appears I was wrong, Hiei," she said. "And I'm glad of it. I didn't want to have to let you go."

Hiei slowly lifted his sword, pointing it across the desk at Mukuro, who remained unfazed by his gesture.

"That's it?" he asked quietly. "He's taller than me? You needed to see that he was taller than me to believe that I was not guilty? You couldn't have figured it out by asking my unit like I twice suggested you do, you couldn't have listened to my side of the story, you couldn't have simply realised that I would never do something this stupid? Do you really think so little of me that you need to use something as perfunctory as my physical appearance to justify my innocence? Don't you know my character well enough – after three years in your service – to know that I am not that selfish and short-sighted?"

Mukuro said nothing, and somehow her lack of a response was more telling than any answer she could have given. Hiei slowly lowered his sword and looked around the others. None of them looked surprised that they had been proven wrong, but equally none of them appeared to feel any remorse for having suspected him in the first place – not even Mukuro.

"Bastards," Hiei growled, roughly resheathing his sword. "You're all bastards!"

He spun on his heels and marched out of the room, stomping his way through the corridors of Mukuro's fortress to the nearest exit, which he gladly left through. He then broke into a run, running far and fast, until he started to feel the ache of his exertion. Then, and only then, he ran with direction, taking himself to the nearest hot spring, which he gladly dived into, fully clothed. He swam the length of the pool underwater before emerging and dragging himself out to sit by the water's edge.

It had been a long time since he had felt so angry about anything and it had been an even longer time since he had felt so rejected.

It was like being abandoned by the bandits who had raised him the day they had realised that he was too strong for them to control any more.

It was like being cast out of the ice village all over again.

* * *

"There's no way genetics is an actual science. There's no logic to any of it. And that's what science is all about, right? Logic."

Keiko sighed and sat back hard in her chair.

"What?" Kuwabara asked, turning to her. "It doesn't make sense is all I'm saying!"

"You're not supposed to argue genetic theory, Kuwabara," Keiko patiently replied. "You're just supposed to memorise it and apply it to the questions."

Kuwabara jammed the end of his pen into his mouth and began chewing on it as he turned his attention back to the mock exam paper on his desk.

"It's past nine o'clock already," Keiko added.

"Yuh-huh," Kuwabara muttered, as though he had not really heard her.

"And we're still on biology…" Keiko said.

"Yuh-huh."

"We still have to go over chemistry, maths and geography."

"Yuh-huh."

"And after that you promised me you'd help me study for my history exam."

"Whoa, check this out: an atavism is an actual thing!"

Keiko's face dropped.

"Like Urameshi with the whole mazoku thing, right?" Kuwabara continued, undaunted by the withering look Keiko was giving him. "Check this out: it says an atavism is a genetic throwback that can occur and an example is a chicken being born with teeth! Whoa! I wonder if Puu grew teeth when Urameshi turned into a demon? It wouldn't surprise me, he did get all big and powerful after Urameshi transformed…"

Keiko sighed in despair.

"Sounds like someone could use a snack break," Shizuru said as she entered the room. "How about some hot chocolate and a cookie?"

"Yeah!" Kuwabara said, grinning at his sister.

"What about you, sweetheart?" Shizuru asked, turning to Keiko.

"Coffee," Keiko flatly replied. "Black."

Shizuru smiled sympathetically.

"I really appreciate you helping my baby bro out like this," she said.

"It's no problem," Keiko lied. "Next year is the last year of high school, it's important we do well in the exams this term."

Shizuru nodded.

"Are you sure I can't tempt you with a cookie?" she asked. "Yukina just baked a whole batch of them. They smell amazing."

"Yukina's so considerate!" Kuwabara said, smiling goofily. "She's my little angel in the kitchen!"

Keiko and Shizuru exchanged concerned looks.

"I'm leaving the room before he finishes that sentiment," Shizuru muttered.

She turned and started to go but stopped halfway to the door and visibly tensed.

"Shizuru?" Keiko said, rising from her seat at Kuwabara's desk. "Are you okay?"

"Someone's approaching," Shizuru said, turning around to look at her.

She paused before slowly turning to her younger brother.

"Hey Kazuma?" she said slowly. "Are you… Expecting a visit from Hiei?"

"Hiei?" Kuwabara echoed. "No way! He almost never comes here since he went "back to the darkness"!"

"Well it feels like he's on his way here now," Shizuru replied.

Kuwabara scrunched up his face and concentrated, shortly feeling the same thing his sister apparently could.

"Oh hey, yeah!" he muttered. "I think that is Hiei… But why would he come here at this time of night?"

Shizuru, Kuwabara and Keiko all exchanged confused and worried looks, the moment only ending when they heard someone knocking on the front door. They all then hurried out of the room, but as they reached the top of the stairs a streak of aqua-blue passed below them as Yukina started for the door with uncharacteristic agility. Kuwabara shoved past Keiko and his sister, ignoring their complaints, and ran down the stairs two steps at a time. He reached Yukina an instant after she had opened the door, finding what looked like a slightly bedraggled Hiei standing on the porch. It was dark and had started to rain outside and Hiei had gotten wet on his journey over; the front section of his hair was plastered against his bandana-clad forehead and the ends of his spiked hair were drooping slightly, weighed down by water.

"Miss Yukina?"

Kuwabara narrowed his eyes: Hiei's voice sounded different.

"Yes?" Yukina said.

"Miss Yukina, daughter of Hina of the ice village of demon world?"

"Yes?"

Hiei did something Kuwabara had never seen him do before: he smiled. It was not the half-crazed, murderous sort of grin Hiei usually gave, rather it was a genuine, warm, heartfelt smile. He pulled open his scarf and uncovered a hirui stone attached to a chain before lowering himself to one knee. He held the stone in one hand and formed his other hand into a fist, pressing it to his chest.

"Miss Yukina, my name is Inukasai," he said. "I'm your brother."

Yukina gasped and Kuwabara froze on the spot.

"M-my brother?" Yukina said faintly.

"Yes Miss Yukina, that's correct. I've been searching for you for quite some time and by luck I made contact with a demon who told me you now resided here, in the living world. I risked much to come here to meet with you."

Yukina clasped her hands by her chest and stepped out onto the porch to stand in front of Inukasai – who, Kuwabara thought, looked disturbingly like Hiei.

"I've been searching for you too, brother!" Yukina gushed. "I tried to find you for some time without success and I even asked a very knowledgeable demon with a gifted eye to help me find you, but even he could not find you, even though he has been looking for almost three years now."

Inukasai smiled again – and again Kuwabara flinched as he still felt as though he was looking at Hiei smiling like he was not a reckless killer who controlled the dragon of the darkness flame.

"Oh Miss Yukina, I have so much to tell you," Inukasai said. "May I please enter your home so that we might talk?"

Yukina turned to Kuwabara, who quickly hid his look of confused horror behind a nervous grin that he forced for her benefit.

"Would it be alright if my brother came inside, Kazuma?" she asked.

"Sure thing, baby!" Kuwabara replied, stepping back and grinning at Yukina.

Yukina re-entered the house and Inukasai rose to his feet, first politely bowing his head at Kuwabara and then stepping over the threshold.

"Hold it right there," Shizuru said, stepping forwards.

Inukasai stopped, his eyes growing large and his mouth forming a small o-shape. When Kuwabara saw Yukina pull the exact same face he realised that there was a resemblance between the two: and he wondered why his sister looked so angry.

"Are you sure you're Yukina's brother?" Shizuru asked.

Inukasai tilted his head slightly as though he had not even understood her question.

"It just seems a little odd," Shizuru added.

"Are you getting a bad feeling from him, Shizuru?" Keiko asked.

Shizuru turned to look at Keiko, giving her a long look before turning to Kuwabara, her attention again lingering before she finally looked down at Yukina.

"Ah, it's specifically you three…" she muttered. "The only three people who don't actually know…"

"What?" Kuwabara echoed.

Shizuru ignored him, turning instead to Yukina again.

"Is this really what you expected your brother to be like, sweetheart?" she asked the ice maiden.

Yukina turned to Inukasai and smiled sweetly.

"He is clearly an emiko," she said. "And he holds himself like a brave warrior; Rui told me that my brother was a brave warrior."

"Rui?" Inukasai echoed, turning to Yukina. "You have had contact with Rui since I visited the ice village?"

Yukina's smile widened and her eyes watered with the sheer force of her delight.

"Yes!" she said, nodding her head. "She told me all about you and your visit to the village! I'm so sorry you didn't get to meet our mother."

"It's alright," Inukasai replied. "I had already suspected that our mother had perished. My father had warned me that it must be so."

"Your father?" Yukina asked.

"Yes," Inukasai replied. "As I said, there is so much I would like to talk to you about. There is much I can tell you about my life, and I should dearly like to hear about your life: but unfortunately, I fear I will not be long in this world."

"Oh no, you're dying?" Kuwabara blurted out.

Inukasai smiled and chuckled softly.

"My apologies," he corrected himself. "A poor choice of words on my part. I meant that I will not have long in the human world before hunters come after me. It took me a month of searching to find a portal here and when I tried to pass through it, a border patrol unit caught me. I was forced to fight them in order to come here and although I successfully overcame them, it will only be a matter of time before they pursue me to this world."

"Oh well, this is your lucky day, Inukasai!" Kuwabara said cheerfully. "Because I happen to know some pretty powerful people in demon world who can get you off the hook!"

Inukasai smiled and turned to Yukina.

"Sister, would you be so kind as to introduce me to your friends?" he asked.

"Oh, of course!" Yukina said. "This is Kazuma Kuwabara."

"How's it going?" Kuwabara said.

Inukasai bowed his head in reply.

"This is our friend Keiko Yukimura," Yukina said, holding out a hand towards Keiko.

"Pleased to meet you," Keiko said, bowing her head at Inukasai. "I'm so glad Yukina finally found her brother!"

"I likewise," Inukasai replied, bowing his head at Keiko.

"And this is Kazuma's sister Shizuru Kuwabara," Yukina said, indicating Shizuru with a wave of her hand.

"A pleasure," Inukasai said, bowing at Shizuru.

"Yeah…" Shizuru replied, her face still decidedly sceptical.

"Hey, why don't we get those drinks and cookies now, Shizuru?" Keiko suggested, ushering Shizuru towards the kitchen against her will. "Kuwabara, why don't you give us a hand?"

Kuwabara ignored Keiko's hint that Yukina should have a moment alone with her brother, instead turning his back on Keiko and Shizuru and turning to grin at Inukasai.

"So Inukasai, where have you been all this time?" he asked.

"Let's sit down first," Yukina suggested.

She led the way to the living room, indicating for Inukasai to sit in the best armchair – usually occupied by Mister Kuwabara – and she and Kuwabara sat down opposite him on a sofa.

"I come from a mountain village known as Inugoya," Inukasai explained. "My father is the leader of the tribe of demons that have lived there since the dawn of time."

"You live with your father?" Yukina asked.

"Yes," Inukasai replied. "Our mother had already warned him that I would be cast from the glacial village upon my birth and so he was already on the ground waiting for me. Our mother had promised to bide her time and chose her moment to escape the ice village with you. She said she would meet us and we would be together as a family. She planned to move to our village, where she and my father would have raised us together."

"I would have loved to have been raised with my brother," Yukina said quietly.

"I would have liked that too," Inukasai said. "It was difficult for me growing up in the village: the tribe my father leads is a tribe of dog demons."

Kuwabara snorted in amusement, but when two pairs of very solemn red eyes fixed onto him he quickly sobered.

"Uh, sorry," he corrected himself. "It's just that you don't really look so much like a dog demon, Inukasai."

"That's because I'm not a dog demon, Mister Kuwabara," Inukasai replied. "I'm a fire demon, an emiko, as all male children born to an ice maiden are. The identity and powers of my father are irrelevant: ice maidens only give birth to either another ice maiden – which they conceive automatically upon their one hundredth birthday – or they give birth to a male fire demon, which they conceive from relations with a man."

"Oh wow," Kuwabara muttered.

"By chance, our mother had relations with my father just one day before her one hundredth birthday, just one day before her automatic conception with Yukina," Inukasai added.

"Gees, they didn't put this in the genetics exam…"

Inukasai smiled patiently but shortly shifted his attention to the door as Shizuru and Keiko entered the room. Shizuru placed a tray of tea down on the table in the centre of the room and Keiko laid a plate of cookies next to it. Keiko began preparing tea for everyone and Shizuru turned her attention to Inukasai, narrowing her eyes at him.

"So, Yukina's brother," she said. "Take your coat off. Make yourself at home."

"Oh, thank you," he said.

He stood up and removed his cloak, placing it over the arm of the armchair before sitting down again. Shizuru eyed him over curiously: he was even dressed the same as Hiei, down to the pointed black boots and black vest. He was not as muscular as Hiei and he was definitely taller – taller enough to be noticeably taller than Yukina and a little taller than Keiko, but still shorter than either Kuwabara or Shizuru – but he was otherwise physically identical to Hiei. His arms were bound in bandages, only the upper halves of his upper arms and his fingers exposed to view, he was carrying a sword at his left hip – implying that he, just like Hiei, was a right-handed swordsman.

"Nice bandana," Shizuru commented, pointing at the bandana around his head.

He smiled in what looked like a self-conscious manner and touched a hand to the bandana.

"Yes, I like to make myself bandanas when I am on a specific mission," he said. "This is my lucky bandana: I knew I would need luck on my side to escape to this world and to track down my sister."

"Oh hey, I make my own bandanas like that too!" Kuwabara said.

Inukasai smiled and began removing his bandana. Shizuru leaned forwards, watching his movements carefully, fully expecting him to expose a jagan eye when the bandana came loose; but instead he removed the length of cloth to reveal nothing more than a plain forehead.

"This is made from a cloth blessed by the priestess of our village," he said.

"That's nice, kid," Shizuru said bluntly, recovering a packet of cigarettes from her jeans pocket. "So tell us why it's taken you so long to find Yukina."

"Most of my efforts have involved trying to find the ice village," he replied as Shizuru slid a cigarette from the packet. "When our mother failed to return to him, my father unfortunately became very withdrawn. He wouldn't tell me where the ice village could be found, and I was forced to investigate on my own. I travelled for many years and to many places before I finally found what I sought: and even then, my trials and tribulations were far from over. Approaching the ice village and getting someone there to speak with me was almost as difficult as finding the village had been. And even then, I came away with only the confirmation of my mother's death and the knowledge that my sister had moved on. It was some time more before I discovered she had come to this world."

Shizuru flicked her lighter at her cigarette a few times before shaking it angrily and trying again. When it still failed to produce a flame, Inukasai rose to his feet again.

"May I?" he asked.

Shizuru gave him a puzzled look and he smiled, snapping his fingers, a translucent black flame igniting from the tip of his thumb. Shizuru nodded and cautiously leaned towards the flame, aiming the end of her cigarette into it. When the tip of her cigarette began to glow, Inukasai withdrew his hand, the flame vanishing.

"You're a useful little guy to have around…" Shizuru muttered, before taking a long draw on her cigarette.

He was not Hiei, and Shizuru was almost certain that he was in no way related to Yukina: but he did seem pleasant enough, and both Yukina and Kuwabara seemed to like him. Curiosity besting caution, she sat down and listened along with the others as Inukasai continued retelling his life story.

* * *

Hiei glared over his shoulder as the patrol vehicle stopped on the road below the hill he was sitting partway up. He was not entirely surprised to see Mukuro disembark the vehicle and dash up the hillside to join him, but he was surprised when the first words that came out of her mouth were not the apology he felt sure that she owed him.

"I already admitted I made a mistake, don't sit up here and sulk like a petulant little child, Hiei."

Hiei growled and leapt to his feet.

"You look terrible," Mukuro added. "Get back home, clean yourself up, get some sleep and we'll talk in the morning."

"I'm not sulking and I'm not a child!" he growled.

"Yes you are and yes you are," Mukuro flatly replied. "And now you're making a fool of yourself too. Is your obstinacy really worth your dignity? Because right now you're sacrificing your dignity to make this pointless stand."

"Don't talk to me about dignity! I haven't sacrificed my dignity, you slaughtered it when you called me up in front of your men and set about humiliating me! You didn't even listen to me! What if that bastard on the video had been the same height as me? What then?"

"Then he would have been you."

"But he isn't me: and that's the whole point! You just assumed the worst about me before I'd even had the chance to defend myself!"

"I didn't assume the worst, I just don't trust you. Not when it comes to your friends in the living world."

Hiei paused, his mind only focusing on the middle part of Mukuro's answer.

"You don't trust me?" he asked.

"In matters relating to your friends, I don't trust you not to choose them over me or any of your duties," Mukuro calmly replied. "I never have and I don't think I ever will. Not now."

Hiei tensed again.

"What do you mean "not now"?" he demanded. "Nothing has changed: that wasn't me in that video!"

"But look at how defensive you've become," Mukuro replied. "You're acting this way because you know that could have been you. You know that, if the need arose, you would do exactly those things to benefit yourself or your friends, even at the expense of me, the border patrol or demon world in general."

"I'm not acting out of guilt, you idiot, I'm acting out of anger," Hiei snarled. "You're treating me like I'm the one who's misjudged and made a fool of you!"

Mukuro shrugged and Hiei's anger flared. He turned and started to leave, only stopping when Mukuro called his name. He waited for her to say something else, refusing to so much as turn around until she did; but when she finally did speak, she said the last words he wanted to hear.

"You're over-reacting. This is just childish."

Without any further hesitation, Hiei ran off.

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Kurama meets Inukasai and finds he needs a second opinion, so he calls in Yusuke; but by then Inukasai has very successfully ingratiated himself with Kuwabara, Yukina and Shizuru. After some more moping, Hiei eventually tracks down Yusuke, but doesn't like what he sees when he finds him. **Chapter 2: Hiei's Sister**


	2. Hiei's Sister

**Chapter 2 – Hiei's Sister**

Kurama hesitated, looking up at the Kuwabara's house from his position still standing on the opposite side of the street. He had exams the next morning, it was past ten at night, he had been forced to climb out his bedroom window to avoid his mother noticing his inappropriately timed absence, but reason had long since been abandoned, as it appeared as though Hiei was visiting Kuwabara.

It was, of course, not unusual for Hiei to visit Yukina, but he usually only did so when she was at Genkai's temple, and even then only rarely. It had been some time since Hiei had last arrived in the living world and his arrivals were never announced or necessarily well-timed, but usually he at least arrived at a decent hour of the day, and he had never entered the Kuwabara's house without at least Kurama at his side.

Unable to resist his own curiosity any longer, Kurama crossed the street and knocked on the door. He heard heavy footsteps running through the house that could only belong to Kuwabara; though he seemed oddly enthusiastic considering that it was exam season.

"Oh hey, Kurama!" Kuwabara cheerfully greeted him as he opened the door.

"Kuwabara," Kurama said. "Is everything alright here?"

"Yeah, everything's great!"

Kurama's curiosity was rapidly turning into suspicion.

"Your timing's great too, Yukina's brother just got here!"

Kurama froze. How had Kuwabara found out that Hiei was Yukina's brother? And why was he so excited about it?

"Come on in and meet him!"

Kurama numbly entered the house, waiting for Kuwabara to close the door behind him before following him through to the living room, where he found Keiko and Shizuru sitting together and Yukina sitting opposite Hiei, who was telling a story the three girls all found simultaneously fascinating and humorous.

"Hey Inukasai, this is Kurama," Kuwabara said.

"Inuk…?" Kurama muttered.

"Hello there."

Kurama watched Hiei stand up and bow his head. He had apparently grown about seven inches taller, lost some muscle mass and had his jagan eye removed since they had last met – which had only been a week ago.

"You feeling okay, Kurama?" Kuwabara asked him.

"You've had a very busy week," Kurama numbly replied.

"Yeah, I've been studying like crazy," Kuwabara said.

Kurama glanced at Kuwabara, who looked so blissfully unaware of the situation, he quickly realised he was wasting his time trying to reason with him. He turned to Yukina – who he had always suspected knew, deep down, that Hiei was the brother she was looking for – but she too seemed to be caught up in the moment. He turned to Keiko, the most detail-oriented person present (after himself) in the hope that she might have noticed the hole in the logic: but, he remembered as he saw her smiling at Inukasai, Keiko had never known that Hiei was Yukina's brother and so probably saw no reason to doubt the imposter before her. He finally turned to Shizuru, who was giving him the sort of look he was sure he had been giving everyone else.

"Coffee?" she asked him.

"Tea would be fine," he replied.

She glanced at the teapot on the table and Kurama realised her meaning.

"Coffee would be better though," he corrected himself.

"It's in the kitchen," she said standing up.

"Let me help you with that."

"Sure."

Shizuru stood and moved as quickly from the room as she could without looking suspicious. Kurama followed her closely, feeling a little better when she closed them into the kitchen and promptly looked as perplexed as he felt.

"What the hell is that?" she asked him, pointing through the wall in the general direction of the living room.

"I was hoping you could tell me," Kurama honestly replied.

"I thought he was Hiei," Shizuru replied. "It felt like Hiei when he was coming here and he even looks kinda like Hiei."

"He's not pretending to be Hiei, however," Kurama said. "The name he gave is quite unusual."

"So… What is he?" Shizuru asked. "And how did he get here?"

"For all intents and purposes, he appears to be an emiko – a fire demon born of the ice village – just like Hiei," Kurama replied. "As for how he got here, I'm afraid I have no idea. How did you encounter him and how did he present himself?"

"He knocked on the front door and said he was Yukina's brother."

"I see… It is odd."

"Is it possible he is actually Yukina's brother?"

Kurama turned startled eyes to Shizuru.

"He knows a lot about where she came from," she explained. "He knows the names of her friends back in the ice village, he knows about the hiruiseki, he knows about their customs… And he does look like Hiei. Did somebody maybe get this wrong?"

"How so?" Kurama asked.

"Well, did somebody maybe mistake Hiei for Inukasai?"

Kurama shook his head, the almost sympathetic smile that appeared on Shizuru's face doing little to ease his concerns.

"Look, whatever the guy is, he's not an asshole," she said. "He's actually quite polite and well-spoken – like Yukina – and I don't sense that he's lying to us… I just don't get it. He's either a really convincing fake or you were all wrong about Hiei being Yukina's brother."

Kurama shook his head again.

"Hiei was told he was Yukina's brother by his mother's friend in the ice village," he explained.

"His mother's friend?" Shizuru asked. "You mean the girl called Rui?"

"Yes, that's correct," Kurama confirmed.

"Yeah, that chick maybe needs to check her facts," Shizuru bluntly replied. "She told Inukasai that he was Yukina's brother."

"No, that's not possible."

"Are you sure?"

Kurama frowned and Shizuru appeared to understand his meaning without the need for him to pull a more exaggerated face at her – a face that would better express exactly how he felt and what he was thinking.

"I know it sounds crazy, but the guy seems genuine," she said. "I like to think I'm pretty good at smelling out a rat and this guy's story – and everything else about him – just doesn't stink."

"It's not possible that Hiei is not Yukina's brother," Kurama insisted.

"Well, maybe it is," Shizuru said.

Kurama's face twisted a little further, threatening to warp into the expression of extreme displeasure and disbelief that he was actually feeling.

"Rui said to Inukasai that he was Yukina's brother," Shizuru continued, despite Kurama's increasingly obvious irritation. "She actually said to him "hey kid, my best friend Hina is your mother, I remember the day you were born, I remember Yukina was your sister, Hina is dead, but Yukina is still alive, she went out looking for you, I hope you find her". Did she say any of that to Hiei?"

"I wasn't there first-hand to witness the conversation between Hiei and Rui," Kurama began.

"Well…" Shizuru said.

"However, neither was I present to witness the alleged conversation between Inukasai and Rui," he continued. "And neither were you. I cannot take the word of a stranger over the word of a friend: and having seen the lengths Hiei has gone to to protect his sister, it's simply not possible that Yukina is not Hiei's sister."

"Did Rui actually say to Hiei that he was Yukina's brother? Did she actually tell him that Hina was his mother? Did he see any of it with his extra eye?"

Kurama opened his mouth to continue arguing but found himself struck by silence as a wave of doubt washed over him: Hiei had not discovered his relation to Yukina via his jagan eye. He had not even discovered his relation to his mother via his jagan eye. He had not even been able to locate his missing hirui stone with his jagan eye: in fact, all he had managed to achieve with his new ability had been to see through the fogs and deceptive energy signals and locate the ice village.

Kurama briefly entertained the idea that what Shizuru was saying might be true: Hiei may have been given false information or misunderstood what he was told when he visited the ice village. Maybe Yukina was not his sister.

"This is ridiculous," he concluded aloud.

"Well I'm not gonna be the one to tell Yukina that her "brother" is a liar," Shizuru replied.

Kurama looked over at her, the suddenly solemn look in her eyes raising another issue in his mind.

"I see," he said. "Yukina believes it to be so, and those immediately around her – with the exception of you, Shizuru – don't know otherwise, and so they believe it too."

"It's not my place to say anything," Shizuru pointed out.

"And nor is it mine," Kurama agreed. "Only Hiei can decide how to proceed with this matter. There is also the matter of who Inukasai actually is: where did he come from, how did he get past the border patrol and why did he come here now, of all times?"

"Yeah," Shizuru agreed. "So will you be going to get those answers after your exam tomorrow or would you like that coffee so you can stay up all night and sort it out right now?"

Kurama started to smile, but when he saw the look on Shizuru's face, he realised that she was serious.

"I'll go after my exam," he said. "And I should go for now. Please make an excuse to the others for me."

Shizuru nodded and Kurama quickly left the house, trying to ignore the sound of Kuwabara laughing and telling Inukasai what a "funny guy" he was as he went.

* * *

Hiei opened his eyes to thin slits, glowering up at the sky from his position curled around on the rock face. It was starting to rain, and if the deeply dark clouds on the distant horizon were any indication, the weather was only set to deteriorate as the day progressed. With a groan of reluctance, he pushed himself up onto one hip. He was still at the top of a stack of stones he had fled to the night before, in the isolated wilderness of land by the outer edge of Mukuro's former territory. It was the furthest point away from Mukuro's base he could have gone to without actually leaving the boundaries of Alaric, and it was a place he had been sure he would get a night's sleep in peace. Obviously his plans had not factored in unforeseen events like sudden inclement weather, and as he lacked the desire or motivation to build himself a shelter, he took a moment to consider whether he would remain where he was and tough out the storm or whether he should move on.

When he noticed a lizard watching him in a very patronising way, he got up, squashed the creature under the sole of his boot, and moved on.

Hiei moved away from the approaching storm, crossing into Tourin with no particular purpose in mind. Between the speed he ran at and the direction he took however, he shortly found himself near Yusuke's demon world home – what had formerly been Raizen's tower – and he decided that since he was coincidentally in the neighbourhood, he may as well pay the mazoku a visit.

It had been some time since Hiei had last spoken with Yusuke – as he moved closer to the tower, he tried to remember exactly how long it had been – but he had heard through Kurama that Yusuke was settling into life in demon world generally quite well. He hoped that the former spirit detective would indulge him in a quick sparring session to help him release some of the pent up energy his anger had manufactured, and maybe then he would be able to think a little clearer about what he should do next.

The very last thing he wanted to do was go back to Mukuro and endure more of her flippant insults or else have his concerns treated dismissively. At least he could count on Yusuke to take the time to listen to what he had to say and – after a few inevitable jokes and playful insults – Yusuke would side entirely with Hiei.

As he neared the entrance of the tower, Hiei noticed three of Yusuke's bald-headed companions approaching him. He decided to wait and let them reach him, though he did not especially like the way the strongest of them was looking at him.

"I've come to visit Yusuke," Hiei said to them. "It's not your concern why. Now get out of my way."

"No," the strongest one said, stepping into Hiei's path as he started to move towards the tower doors again.

Hiei stopped, his anger flaring and his eyes staring unblinkingly at the fool before him.

"Yusuke isn't here," the bald-headed demon explained. "You just missed him though, so you oughta be able to catch him if you leave now."

Hiei narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"He went to see his friends in the living world," the bald-headed demon continued. "Kurama came for him, they left together."

Hiei froze. It was unlike Kurama to visit demon world and collect Yusuke for anything, least of all a casual, social gathering. Something was obviously afoot. Something concerning him, he thought bitterly: why else had neither of them contacted him and invited him to join them?

With a growl of annoyance Hiei spun on his heels and took off in the direction of the nearest portal to the living world.

* * *

"I know you've got a really, really messed up sense of humour, but this is a joke, right?"

"I'm afraid not, no."

Yusuke stared at Kurama, but Kurama kept his head forward and kept walking.

"How the hell did it even happen?" Yusuke asked.

"I don't know," Kurama replied. "But I'd like you to meet him and to give me your opinion on the matter. And, once you've done so, I'd like your assistance in planning how we break the news to Hiei."

Yusuke slowly shook his head. Everything Kurama had just told him sounded so ridiculous, it just had to be a set-up of some kind. Yusuke decided to reserve judgement on the matter – but really only because Kurama was the least likely person he knew to set up such an elaborate hoax – until he had seen the situation for himself. Together they approached the front door of Kuwabara's house, and as Kurama reached out a hand to knock, the door swung open and Kuwabara appeared before them, grinning like an idiot.

"Urameshi!" he said. "Kurama!"

"Kuwabara…" Yusuke flatly replied. "How's it going?"

"Come on in, you guys!" Kuwabara said, stepping back and waving a hand for them to enter.

Yusuke looked over at Kurama, who merely raised his eyebrows slightly, his expression otherwise remaining as serious as it had been the entire time he had been talking about who was apparently at Kuwabara's house.

"Hey you guys, you'll never guess what happened last night," Kuwabara said as they made their way through the house.

"You grew your first hair down there?" Yusuke asked.

"Very funny, Urameshi," Kuwabara replied. "But not even your dumb jokes can spoil this: Yukina found her brother!"

Yusuke looked over at Kurama again, and again the fox demon held his solemn expression.

"Hey Inukasai, these are some buddies of mine."

Yusuke turned his attention back to Kuwabara at the sound of his voice, stepping into the living room and then stopping short as his eyes moved to what stood beyond Kuwabara.

"I don't know if you remember but this is Kurama: he was here last night, but he had to go early. And this punk right here is Yusuke Urameshi."

Yusuke could not stop his face from twisting as Hiei stood up and bowed to him, his expression oddly calm and amiable, his eyes not set in that near-permanent disapproving squint they usually were, his shoulders relaxed rather than squared.

"Hello there."

Even his voice was more relaxed and even-toned.

"Hey you," Yusuke said, running his eyes over Hiei curiously.

"Yusuke and I were just discussing your visit here before we arrived," Kurama said. "We both wondered how you managed to reach this realm from demon world: were you not detained at all by the border patrol?"

"What the hell are you talking about, fox boy?" Yusuke asked. "The border patrol wouldn't stop him, he is the border patrol!"

Yusuke silently wondered why Kurama was looking at him as though he was the one who had just said something ridiculous.

"I understand your concerns," Hiei said. "But I had to find a way to get here, a way to reach my sister, Yukina."

"Since the installation of the patrol, few demons have passed the borders," Kurama said. "And those who have, have always been swiftly apprehended on this side of the border. If it has not already happened, you ought to expect a patrol unit to come looking for you."

"Yes, I appreciate that," Hiei replied. "It was very fortunate for me that Mister Kuwabara allowed me to stay here last night, but I do understand that I must return to demon world, as my visit here is an unsanctioned one."

"Okay, what the hell are you talking about, Hiei?" Yusuke snapped.

The room fell silent in a way that even Yusuke thought was uncomfortable.

"Urameshi!" Kuwabara hissed, leaning closer to Yusuke. "That's not Hiei! His name's Inukasai!"

Yusuke wanted to tell Kuwabara he was being ridiculous, but when he saw the look of genuine confusion on Hiei's face – or rather the look of genuine confusion on Hiei's lookalike's face – Yusuke started to think that maybe, just maybe, everything Kurama had said on the way to Kuwabara's house was true. He took a moment to study the fake Hiei a little closer, seeing then that he was too tall to be the real Hiei, standing only a few inches shorter than Yusuke himself; he was too scrawny to be Hiei; his forehead was bare and bereft of a third eye; and his general demeanour was undeniably less tense and unapproachable than Hiei's.

"Hey man, how's it going?" he said, trying to force a smile as he looked at Inukasai.

"Very well thank you Mister Urameshi," Inukasai replied. "But I believe Mister Kurama is correct: I really should return to demon world before I bring any trouble to this household. My hosts here have been most generous and gracious, I wouldn't want to cause them any bother. If you don't mind, I would like a moment alone with my sister, so that we might make arrangements to meet again."

"Hey, you don't have to leave, buddy!" Kuwabara said to him. "Urameshi knows people in demon world who can fix this for you, right Urameshi? Can't you get Inukasai a pass to stay here or something?"

"What the hell do you think I am Kuwabara, a damn hall monitor?" Yusuke snapped. "And besides, it doesn't work that way. A demon can't just get a pass to live in the human world. It's way more complicated than that."

"It is a delicate matter, and for now, I believe Inukasai's suggestion would be the wisest approach," Kurama added. "You should return home as soon as you can, Inukasai. And for now, we will give you a moment alone with Yukina."

He started for the door and indicated for the others to follow him, leading them all to the kitchen. Once they were there, Kurama closed the door.

"Isn't Yukina's brother great?" Kuwabara said as the door closed.

Kurama glanced at Yusuke before turning to Shizuru, who gave a small nod of her head.

"Hey Kazuma, why don't you head down to the local shop and get some more of that soda your new friend liked so much," she said, retrieving her wallet from her pants' pocket.

"Yeah, okay," Kuwabara agreed, taking her wallet and leaving without hesitation or question.

After hearing the front door close behind Kuwabara, Yusuke turned to Shizuru.

"Okay, I know you know that guy isn't really Yukina's brother, so who the hell is he?" he asked.

Shizuru shrugged, but looked far too indifferent about the matter – even though she usually looked indifferent about most matters.

"He believes Yukina is his sister, and Yukina believes he is her brother," she said. "I don't know what else to tell you. He's been a really well-behaved house guest – even by human standards he's been really polite and humble."

"He does appear to be an emiko born of the ice village," Kurama added. "His resemblance to Hiei goes beyond the physical."

"Yeah, his energy even feels like Hiei's," Yusuke agreed.

"I don't get the feeling he's lying about anything he's told us," Shizuru said. "And Yukina adores him already."

"Yes, and no doubt Kuwabara is delighted at this outcome," Kurama said. "To find that Yukina's brother is someone he can share a pleasant conversation with is surely preferable to learning that he is in fact in love with Hiei's sister."

"Yeah, sure, it would be convenient for Kuwabara if that guy in there was Yukina's real brother," Yusuke said. "But the fact is, he's not. Yukina is Hiei's sister. Right?"

Yusuke glanced back and forth between Kurama and Shizuru, silently wondering why neither of them were agreeing with him and why they both looked slightly apprehensive.

"Right?" he pressed.

"Well…" Shizuru began.

"Well what?" Yusuke echoed. "Gees, what are you getting at? The guy is a fake! If Hiei finds out about any of this, he'll kill that guy and probably Kuwabara too for believing him!"

"Yeah, but that's not gonna happen, is it Yusuke?"

Yusuke paused, the look on Shizuru's face making him suddenly concerned.

"Look, Yukina has lived here with us for a while now, and I can tell you two things about that girl," she continued. "First of all, she hides a lot of sadness because she misses her family. Sure, she likes all of us, but when she lost her mother, she started out to find her brother, and finding him was the only thing that gave her hope and helped her deal with the loss of her mother. Finding her brother is the only thing that girl has ever wanted. And last night, she got that wish, and I've never seen her happier."

"Are you for real?" Yusuke asked.

"And second of all, Yukina has been relying on Hiei to help her find her brother, and instead of growing a pair, swallowing his pride and just telling the poor girl the truth, Hiei has messed her about," Shizuru said. "He rarely visits her, and when he does, he always tells her some depressing story about how her brother is probably dead and she's a fool for continuing to search for him or to wait for him. Every time he says things like that to Yukina, he upsets her. She pretends she's okay with it, you all see her smiling and thanking Hiei for his efforts, but I'm the one who has to lie awake at night listening to her cry herself to sleep afterwards."

"Okay, well, I didn't know about that part," Yusuke conceded.

"The arrival of Inukasai is convenient for more than just Kuwabara then," Kurama said.

"I'm just saying, we don't know for sure that he's not actually her brother," Shizuru said. "He makes her really happy, he's a nice guy, he gets along with my brother – which should really tell you how patient he is – and he came here with the best of intentions. Unless Hiei shows up and comes clean, I don't really know what else we can do."

Yusuke glanced at Kurama, finding that the fox demon looked unaffected by Shizuru's last remark.

"Are you saying we should all just pretend that guy is really Yukina's brother?" Yusuke asked her.

When she did not answer, Yusuke turned to Kurama.

"Kurama?" he said.

Kurama gave a slight shake of his head.

"I don't know what to tell you, Yusuke," he said. "It's not our place to interfere – and don't see how we even could without admitting to knowing the true identity of Yukina's brother, which would then oblige us to reveal Hiei's secret. I don't agree with Shizuru that Inukasai is actually Yukina's brother, but likewise I don't intend to tell anyone else otherwise."

"But if we don't do something, that guy is gonna move right in on Hiei's territory," Yusuke said. "Don't we have a duty, as Hiei's friends, to get rid of this asshole?"

"He's really not an asshole, Yusuke," Shizuru said through a sigh.

"This whole situation would be so much easier if he were," Kurama commented.

"But… He's a…" Yusuke tried. "Come on! Shizuru, how would you feel if some girl who looked just like you showed up and told Kuwabara that she was his real sister?"

"Chance would be a fine thing," Shizuru said. "If you know anybody like that, get her to call me: she's welcome to Kazuma."

"This is serious," Yusuke said. "And for me to say that, you gotta know that it really is."

"Yes, and I think that now we have established that Inukasai is not a threat to Yukina or anyone else, we must ensure that he returns to demon world safely," Kurama said.

"What?" Yusuke echoed.

"Our next duty is to find and inform Hiei," Kurama finished.

"Oh great," Yusuke said with a sigh. "Exactly how I wanted to spend my Friday: playing bodyguard to a fake Hiei and telling the real Hiei just about the worst thing I possibly could. You do know Hiei's gonna flip out over this, right?"

"It's imperative that we inform Hiei as soon as possible," Kurama insisted. "How he reacts and how he chooses to deal with the situation will affect how the rest of us can process it. Bear in mind also that Hiei holds a position of authority within the border patrol, and as such, Inukasai's sentence for crossing the borderline will be at Hiei's discretion."

"I really wish you'd stop talking now, because you're making this sound even more depressing."

Kurama nodded as though he accepted Yusuke's statement.

"You're gonna check out whether this guy is actually Yukina's brother too though, right?" Shizuru asked.

Yusuke glanced back and forth between Shizuru and Kurama, surprised to see them both looking serious.

"We need to make contact with Hiei first and foremost," Kurama said. "After all, the decision as to how we deal with this is ultimately his."

* * *

Hiei was rapidly losing the ability to think coherently; or perhaps just to think at all. He had arrived in the living world and followed Yusuke's energy signal, not entirely surprised to find that it took him to the Kuwabara's house, and so he had run to his usual start point for approaching Kuwabara's house: standing on top of the streetlight outside the house that afforded him a good view into both the living room on the ground floor of the house and the bedroom above it where Yukina slept. At the time of day he had arrived, he was expecting to find Yukina at home alone; which had made Yusuke's presence there all the more suspicious. However, when he had arrived, the first thing he had noticed had made him forget all about the time of day or the fact that typical routines were not being followed.

He was already there, sitting in the living room, drinking tea and fraternising with Kuwabara, Yukina and Yusuke's girlfriend.

Of course, it was not actually him down there. Clearly it was the other emiko, the one from the video Mukuro had shown him, the one who looked just like him. Hiei's first reaction to seeing the imposter was confusion. In his ire at being falsely accused of having sabotaged an entire patrol unit and the ensuing reactions of those around him, Hiei had been so focused on how wronged he had been and how angry the wound to his pride had made him feel that he had not even considered the fact that the demon in the photographs and in the video was an actual physical being, still at large somewhere, walking around wearing his face and his clothes.

However, after a few short minutes or watching the faker schmoozing with Yukina and the two humans, Hiei's confusion very quickly gave way to anger. This emiko was a real being, who had very realistically sabotaged a patrol unit – of the border patrol that Hiei was primarily responsible for the operation of – he had gone to the living world and now, just to really add insult to injury, he was at Kuwabara's house and Yukina appeared to be fascinated by every word he uttered.

When Kuwabara's sister led Kurama and Yusuke into the room, the streetlight beneath Hiei's feet began to shudder as Hiei himself shook with rage. He watched through a pained sneer of blinding fury as all seven occupants of the room sat down together and drank tea, talking and laughing as though one of them was not the biggest phony ever to have existed.

It briefly occurred to Hiei that what he was witnessing was actually highly unusual – although he had heard that there were other emikos in demon world, Hiei had never before encountered one, and he had never even considered that another emiko would look so like he did – but before any sense of reasoning could really take hold in his mind, wrath once more took over common sense and Hiei launched himself off the streetlight, landing by the porch. He marched straight into the house, without knocking on the door or removing his boots, and continued into the living room where he drew out his sword and pointed it at the source of his anger.

"Whoa, hey, Hiei, when did you get here?" Yusuke said.

Hiei ignored him, his eyes focused on what almost felt like his own reflection. The emiko was on his feet and his hands were held up in surrender, the tip of Hiei's sword mere inches from his throat.

"Immediately explain to me why you attacked a border patrol unit and stole away to this world or I will not hesitate to kill you," Hiei warned him.

"Ah, you've come to arrest me because I attacked the guards, of course."

Hiei was mildly consoled to hear that the imposter sounded nothing like him. The resemblance between them, whilst startling, had at least not stretched as far as their voices.

"You can't arrest Inukasai, Hiei!" Kuwabara protested.

Hiei moved his eyes to the lumbering human fool.

"I'll deal with you later," he said.

He moved his eyes back to the emiko – apparently named Inukasai – and tensed himself in preparation of simply running his sword right through the idiot's throat. He had initially thought about getting some answers from him, about taking him back to demon world and handing him over to Mukuro as absolute proof of his own innocence: but the sight of Inukasai bonding with Yusuke, Kurama and Yukina was simply too much. He had to die.

"No, please!"

Despite still being almost literally blinded by rage, Hiei snatched his sword back, dropping his arm to his side, as Yukina leapt in front of Inukasai, holding her arms out at her sides and staring at Hiei with wide, frightened eyes.

"Please don't fight!" she said. "I know it's your duty as part of the border patrol to return demons to demon world, but Inukasai isn't a criminal! He's my brother."

Hiei's sword fell to the floor, disturbing Kuwabara's cat in the process, sending the startled feline fleeing from the room.

"After all this time I've been looking for him, he actually found me," Yukina continued. "Isn't it wonderful? And now you don't have to search any more."

Yukina had tears in her eyes and she was smiling – both expressions of her elation – but when she reached out an upturned palm towards Hiei the depth of his own emotions quickly overtook hers, his anger rapidly turning into unadulterated horror; before she even opened her mouth, Hiei already knew what his sister was going to say next.

"May I please have my hirui stone back, Mister Hiei?"

Something throbbed in Hiei's knees and he had to concentrate to keep himself upright.

"You have no more need for it now that I've found my brother. Thank you so much for all your help though."

Hiei stared blankly back at his sister. He did not even care that Inukasai had caused him so much bother just so that he could get to Yukina to tell her he was her brother, he only cared that Yukina had believed him. And, by the look on her face, it was abundantly clear that she did believe him. She was still holding out her hand expectantly, but the look on her face was starting to change from the joyful expression of her declaration to a look of increasing confusion laced with just the faintest hint of irritation, as though Hiei's delay in returning her hiruiseki to her was something that seemed nonsensical to her.

"C'mon Hiei," Kuwabara said. "You can't arrest Inukasai now. And besides, how many times have you done things Yusuke should have arrested you for?"

Hiei found the strength to blink. He tried to make himself talk – even if only just to issue Kuwabara with a biting insult – he tried to make himself move – even if just to retrieve his sword – but with every passing second, Yukina's expression was becoming more and more confused and the hint of irritation was turning into something more palpable, and the sight of such emotions on his sister's face, and the knowledge that he had inspired them, was making it harder and harder to even think let alone act.

"This is a delicate matter," Kurama said, stepping forwards to stand alongside Yukina. "Perhaps Yusuke and I should discuss this with Hiei first and then we can all reconvene and decide what to do next."

"I understand that I should return to demon world, Mister Kurama," Inukasai said. "I certainly didn't mean to bring trouble like this to my dear sister's door: if my departure will mend this fiasco, than I shall go immediately."

"You don't have to go anywhere, Inukasai," Kuwabara said. "You only just got here, and you're still catching up with Yukina."

"Okay, let's take this outside," Yusuke said, slipping past Kurama.

From the corner of his eye Hiei saw Yusuke pick up his dropped sword and wave for Kurama to follow him.

"Let's discuss this," Kurama said quietly, stepping towards Hiei.

Hiei looked up at Kurama, over at Inukasai, around at Kuwabara and then finally returned his gaze to Yukina. When he saw that she was still holding out her hand, he finally regained a little of his senses.

"Fine," he said, turning to Kurama again.

He turned and left the room with Kurama following closely behind. On instinct he followed the route Yusuke was taking, eventually finding himself in the kitchen. Yusuke began helping himself to a bottle of soda from the fridge and Kurama loitered by the door, only closing it after they had been joined by one other person.

"What's she doing here?" Hiei asked, pointing at Kuwabara's sister.

"Shizuru was here when Inukasai arrived," Kurama explained as he secured the door. "She's the person best placed to give an objective opinion on him."

"Objective opinion?" Hiei spat, his anger quickly returning with the sight of Yukina's expectant frustration gone from his field of vision. "That bastard nearly got me thrown out of my job and arrested and now he's here nesting with Yukina and Kuwabara!"

"Hiei, we're as shocked as you are, I assure you," Kurama said, sounding far too calm to possibly be even a fraction as shocked as Hiei felt. "But we must address the facts here: have you come here on behalf of the border patrol to apprehend Inukasai?"

"No, I just came here to kill him!" Hiei shot back.

"Right, but you knew about him?" Yusuke asked. "You knew he was here? Mukuro sent you because the border patrol reported he'd got through to the living world?"

Hiei faltered slightly as memories of his discussion with Mukuro about Inukasai's assault of the patrol unit flitted through his mind.

"You weren't ordered to come here and arrest him?" Kurama asked.

"No, but I ought to!" Hiei recovered.

"Did you come here because you sensed his approach then?" Kurama asked, ignoring Hiei's threat. "I must confess, it was his energy signal that drew me here last night."

Hiei glared at Kurama, his fists clenching at his sides.

"Last night?" he ground out. "That bastard has been here, at this house, since last night?"

"He slept in my brother's room," Shizuru offered. "We couldn't just turn him away, he told us he was Yukina's brother, and she and Kazuma both believed him."

Hiei turned his attention to Shizuru.

"This isn't any of your concern and I advise you to stay the hell out of it," he warned her in a low growl.

"Hiei, the problem is, Inukasai does genuinely appear to believe that Yukina is his sister," Kurama said. "And Yukina is already very fond of him – as you no doubt just saw – and Kuwabara has befriended him with ease. This situation will be beyond salvation if you do not act quickly."

Hiei slowly rounded on Kurama, stalking towards him. Kurama did not retreat and so Hiei was forced to stop when he was standing immediately in front of the fox demon.

"What are you implying, Kurama?" he asked through tightly clenched teeth. "Because I really don't like it when you skirt around the subject. Be direct or keep your asinine opinions to yourself."

"Hiei, if you don't tell Yukina the truth today, you will lose her forever."

* * *

**Next Chapter: **Hiei's dilemma hits fever pitch, but, just as it seems nobody is willing to accommodate his point of view, he finds an unexpected ally in the form of a certain ferry girl. After a confrontation between Inukasai and Botan turns nasty, Hiei is confused by what follows, but believes the answers to his problems may be just around the corner (too bad for him they're not, otherwise this would just be a 4-chapter fic). **Chapter 3: Dog in the Manger**


	3. Dog in the Manger

**Chapter 3 – Dog in the Manger**

"What are you implying, Kurama? Because I really don't like it when you skirt around the subject. Be direct or keep your asinine opinions to yourself."

"Hiei, if you don't tell Yukina the truth today, you will lose her forever."

Hiei leaned back from Kurama, finding for the second time that day that it was possible for even the most passionate of anger to vanish almost instantaneously.

"Hey Hiei, I don't like this either, but I think Kurama's got a point," Yusuke added, as though he thought Hiei's lack of a response was because he wanted to hear more unhelpful opinions from other people. "You know Yukina's been looking for her brother, you know she never gives up no matter what anyone says to her, so you gotta know she's gonna believe this guy and be all over him unless you tell her the truth."

"Yes, and only you can tell her the truth Hiei," Kurama said.

"Assuming you are her brother."

Hiei turned to Shizuru at her last remark, caught between the desire to slit her throat to silence her and a perverse want to demand an explanation from her.

"Really?" Yusuke said. "This again?"

"Hiei, did you know of Inukasai at all before today?" Kurama asked Hiei. "He is an emiko, just like you are, born of the ice village, and he appears to be about the same age as you–"

"What did you just say?" Hiei cut him off.

"I said Inukasai is an emiko, just like–"

"No, you just said he's the same age as me."

"Yes."

"Are you blind? He's clearly a lot older than me – yet another damn good reason why he can't be Yukina's twin brother!"

Hiei directed his last remark at Shizuru, who looked almost entirely unfazed by the glare he was giving her.

"Really?" Yusuke said.

"Yes, really!" Hiei snapped, rounding on Yusuke. "He must be nearly twice my age!"

"Really?" Yusuke asked, sounding incredulous.

Hiei growled and bared his teeth and Yusuke finally appeared to realise how insolent he was acting as he made an attempt to hide the surprise in his face.

"Well, I mean, I guess he does look older than Yukina…" he conceded. "Though to be completely honest, so do you. I guess that's just like what Kuwabara always says about you though, right? You had a rough childhood and you had to grow up way faster than most kids."

"Are you trying to piss me off?" Hiei growled. "Kuwabara knows nothing about me and is no authority on this matter!"

"I think they both look too old to be Yukina's twin," Shizuru commented.

"Didn't you hear what I just said, woman?" Hiei snapped, rounding on her. "I said Kuwabara is no authority on this: neither the stupid oafish Kuwabara nor the dour ironic Kuwabara!"

"On the contrary Hiei, Shizuru has spent a considerable amount of time around Inukasai," Kurama interrupted. "And she has an unquestionable ability to sense something improper and to see through an idle ruse. Shizuru, has your guest given you any reason to suspect that he has any ill intentions towards anyone or that he might be plotting something untoward?"

"He's pretending to be me!" Hiei said before Shizuru could answer. "That's something untoward and improper!"

"He's not pretending to be you, Hiei," Shizuru said. "He gave his name as Inukasai, he said his father is the leader of the dog demon tribe, he's from a mountain village, he said his mother is an ice maiden named Hina, and that it was Hina's best friend Rui who cast him out of the ice village at birth."

Hiei was unsure what angered him more: the fact that Kuwabara's deadpan sister was suddenly such an expert on his life or that she genuinely seemed to think he was lying about any part of it.

"Are you calling me a liar?" he asked her.

"Nobody said that, Hiei," Kurama quickly jumped in. "But there has obviously been some confusion somewhere along the line. Inukasai insists that Rui told him he was Hina's son and that he had a twin sister named Yukina."

"Rui is a short-sighted bitch!" Hiei retorted. "She's so blind, she couldn't even see properly to throw me in a straight line when she threw me off the cliff! There's a lot of fog in the ice village!"

"The two of you do really look alike too," Yusuke added. "As babies, you were probably identical. It's weird that. You both had different parents, but you both ended up looking exactly the same."

"We don't look exactly the same!" Hiei argued.

"I guess not," Yusuke agreed. "He's taller than you."

Hiei turned to Yusuke, grabbing back his sword from the mazoku's hand. Once he had his weapon back he realised he was not sure who he wanted to turn it on: Yusuke for repeating Mukuro's mistake, Kurama for being far too calm and logical, Shizuru for interfering or Kuwabara for fawning over the phony.

"Take a moment to think this over very carefully, Hiei."

"Or what?" Hiei demanded, turning to Kurama.

"As I already stated Hiei, this is very much a do or die situation: if you do not tell Yukina the truth now, you will never be able to, and you will have to accept the fact that she considers Inukasai to be her brother," Kurama replied.

Hiei looked around the others. Shizuru looked as though she almost hoped that he would not tell Yukina the truth, Kurama looked neutral – though Hiei felt that he was being patronising – and Yusuke looked as though he was about to say something stupid.

"It's not like you haven't had loads of great opportunities to tell her already, Hiei."

Hiei made to leave after Yusuke's comment, but stopped when he felt a hand on his arm. He pulled his arm from Kurama's hold and glared back at him, lingering only long enough to find out why the fox demon had halted his exit.

"Hiei, just step outside, gather your thoughts and make a decision. If you walk away from this now, you have, perhaps unwittingly, made the decision to allow this to continue as it is. And you should consider that if you choose not to tell Yukina the truth or if you just choose to just walk away, you have an obligation to return Yukina's hirui stone to her as she asked."

Hiei grunted out a noise of disgust and fled. He shortly found a way out into the enclosed back garden, at the back of which stood an especially lush tree. Hiei shot up the tree, burying himself within its thick foliage. He then stowed his sword and removed Yukina's hiruiseki from around his neck, attempting to hold it in the air to study it; but his hands were shaking too badly to hold it still.

There were simply no words to explain how he felt at that moment.

In the space of a day, his entire life had been turned on its head. It was not that he was not accustomed to having to make abrupt new beginnings in his life, but he had worked so hard to get to where he was, and he felt as though everything he had been taking for granted lately was suddenly slipping through his fingers with no way to keep a hold of it. He felt like he was losing everything and was powerless to stop it. He could barely even keep a hold of Yukina's hirui stone; he had started to sweat profusely, making his shaky grip even less certain. He eventually settled for encasing the stone in both of his fists and holding it to his chest.

He thought about his own hiruiseki, still in Mukuro's chambers. He had no real desire to get his own stone back, but the thought of relinquishing Yukina's – even to Yukina herself – was somehow impossible to fathom.

Why was nobody else as outraged as he was? Why had Mukuro not apologised for falsely accusing him of something? Why had she not realised he would never do such a thing? Why was Kurama backing him into a corner and trying to force him to do something he had always made clear he never wanted to do? Why was Yusuke so flippant about the whole thing? Why was Kuwabara – the supposedly super spiritually aware, sensitive psychic – befriending an imposter and letting him get close to Yukina? Why was Kuwabara's sister getting involved and falling for everything Inukasai was saying? And, most of all, why had Yukina believed it all, without even one shred of doubt?

A very small part of Hiei had suspected that Yukina knew that he was her brother. Sometimes, when he had tried to tell her to give up her search, tried to convince her that her brother was dead, she had said some things and looked at him in certain ways that had made him wonder if maybe she had figured it out. Maybe she had always known the truth, maybe she was just waiting for him to confirm or admit to it.

But seeing her with Inukasai, there was no doubt whatsoever that she had accepted him as her brother.

The battle was already lost.

Why did nobody else understand or care about what was happening?

"It's just such a lovely day, I just wanted to show you the garden!"

Hiei stiffened, his eyes moving to the source of the voice that had interrupted his thoughts. Through the densely packed leaves around him he could barely make out a fragmented image of Inukasai walking towards the centre of the garden, being guided forwards by a pair of hands on his shoulders.

"Isn't it delightful? Yukina planted many of the flowers herself, so I thought you, as her brother, would like to see the fruits of her labour!"

"Why yes, that is delightful."

Hiei leaned over a little as Inukasai stopped walking. He wondered when the ferry girl had arrived and why she of all people was acting as a tour guide for the faker, but she always had been an immense fool, and so he was not surprised that she had fallen for the impostor's little act too. She ought to know better because she – just like Kurama, Yusuke and apparently even Kuwabara's sister – knew that Yukina was Hiei's sister, but of course she too had fallen for the words of the silver-tongued bastard.

"Perhaps we should invite Yukina and Mister Kuwabara to join us out here?" Inukasai said in his irritatingly pitch-perfect voice. "Between them they would better be able to tell us which parts of the lovely garden they were responsible for."

The ferry girl moved to stand at Inukasai's side, her ponytail flicking about as she did a very exaggerated survey of her surroundings, her attention lingering on the house a little longer, before she turned to look directly at him.

"Alright, you can cut the crap now, "Inukasai"."

Hiei froze, the look of shock on Inukasai's face almost a reflection of what he himself felt at hearing the ferry girl's words. For a brief, glorious, moment, Hiei actually thought that someone had finally had the good sense to see what was really happening, someone had finally had the courage to stand up and point out the fact that Inukasai was a lying bastard. But, when he saw the pink and blue abomination put her hands on her hips – or rather, her sleeves on her hips, as her hands were concealed beneath her over-sized kimono sleeves – and pout at Inukasai, he realised his mistake: she was not calling Inukasai out on his claim to be Yukina's brother, she thought he actually was Hiei, and she was about to accuse him of mocking her.

"I'm sorry Miss, I'm not sure that I understand," Inukasai said.

"Listen here, you might have everybody else fooled with your little act, but I'm not falling for it!" the ferry girl snapped back at him.

"I don't understand the basis of your ire: did I say or do something to offend you?" Inukasai asked.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, you did!"

"I see. I certainly didn't mean to."

"Anyone who messes with the heart of the sweetest girl I have ever known is very offensive to me!"

"I-I'm genuinely at a loss as to what you are referring to–"

"Oh, give it a rest! You know Yukina is not your sister. You have no right to come into her life, lie to her and mess her about like this! You are going to march right back into that house young man, and you are going to apologise to Yukina. You are going to tell her that you made a mistake, that you are not her brother and then you are going to crawl back under whatever stone it was that you dwelled beneath before you emerged from it and came here to ruin everybody's happiness! Do you understand me?"

A long silence followed, during which Hiei was almost certain he felt more surprised than Inukasai looked.

"But Yukina is my sister," Inukasai eventually recovered.

"Oh no she is not!" the ferry girl argued back. "And you are going to tell her the truth right now, or so help me, I will make you wear this oar!"

The ferry girl's oar appeared in her hand and, were she a creature of any great strength, Hiei might have taken her threat seriously: she certainly looked as though she intended to ram her oar – blade first – up whichever of Inukasai's orifices she could reach first if he did not comply with her demands.

"Miss, I don't understand why you are being so hostile towards me, but I'm going to have to ask you to restrain yourself," Inukasai said, his previously smooth voice gaining a slightly gritty edge to it.

"You're the one who needs restraining!" the ferry girl replied, unaffected by his threat.

"I don't like that someone as volatile as you spends time around my sister," Inukasai said, his voice even harsher.

"Yukina is not your sister!" the ferry girl argued back. "You're a liar and a fraud and you will break that girl's heart!"

"I don't know why you doubt me so. I have searched long and hard for my sister and to be finally reunited with her is a very joyous event for both her and me: your bitterness is most unwelcome here. I propose that you are the one hurting Yukina, not I."

"You are a monster and I won't allow you to continue this charade!"

The ferry girl grasped her oar firmly and drew it back. Hiei already knew she would never manage to connect with a blow, but he was mildly amused that she was even trying it, as being attacked by a servant of spirit world was quite insulting to even the lowest class of demon, and so Inukasai was about to suffer a wound of some sort. As he had expected, Inukasai effortlessly caught her oar in one hand as it swung towards him, halting it instantly.

What happened next was not something Hiei had expected, and as such, the ferry girl was on her knees before he had even registered what had occurred.

"I had to do that, you were being hysterical," Inukasai said, his voice once more smooth.

He threw the ferry girl's oar down at her side, but she was still on all fours, her head down, one hand pressed to the ground supporting her weight and the other hovering in the air by one side of her face.

"You're a neurotic mess, and I don't want you around my sister," Inukasai said.

Hiei dropped from the tree and darted across the garden, using the momentum of his forward motion to add force as he punched Inukasai in the jaw with a lethal right jab. Apparently the idiot had neither felt Hiei's approach nor expected the attack because Hiei's strike was true, and Inukasai was sent flying into the corner of the garden, where he landed in a pile of freshly raked sakura petals. When he did not get up, Hiei turned his attention to the ferry girl, who was starting to stand, one hand holding her oar at her side, the other still fluttering at her face. She took a moment to notice him and when she did she looked horrified.

"Oh, Hiei!" she said in a panicked tone. "Something terrible has happened!"

"I already know," Hiei said, deciding to save her the bother of trying to lie about Inukasai's presence at Kuwabara's house.

"You-you do?" she asked. "It's awful! It's just… It's an outrage! I am outraged!"

"…Me too," Hiei quietly replied.

He was almost certain it was the first time he had agreed with her about anything – and it seemed odd that this should be the first thing they did share a common opinion on. But he did not have long to linger on the thought as he heard the back door clicking and Kuwabara calling for Inukasai.

"Follow me."

Hiei had left the garden and crossed two further gardens before realising what he had just said. He did not really know why he had asked the ferry girl to come with him; after all, he had only been thinking that she too ought to flee after what had happened, not specifically that she ought to come with him. And as he ran, it also occurred to him that he had no idea where he would go: Mukuro was being difficult, Yusuke, Kurama and Yukina were all back at Kuwabara's house with Inukasai, and he did not know anyone else who would let him live with them until he had fixed the mess he found himself in.

And so he just kept running.

* * *

Botan was glad when Hiei finally stopped, because it had been a strain for her to fly in a straight line, let alone keep up with him. She gladly lowered herself to the ground, hopping off her oar and banishing it before climbing down the riverbank to the stretch of sand Hiei had moved to. The location was quite isolated, but she considered that a good thing, as she was sure that Hiei was going to be even more furious than she was, and he would probably vent his anger in more ways than just verbally, making him a danger to anyone else.

"I can't believe that the nerve of that boy!" she said as she joined Hiei by the water's edge. "He's a liar and a fraud and he's deceiving the most innocent girl imaginable! And why does he have to talk that way? Nobody is that polite and humble, not even Kurama! He's so fake, it makes me sick! And what is wrong with everyone else? Why aren't Yusuke, Kurama and Shizuru outraged about this travesty of justice? Even Kuwabara is at fault here: I know he doesn't know that Inukasai isn't Yukina's brother, but he should have the good sense to see what a phony the boy is!"

Botan sighed and turned to look at Hiei, finding him staring up at her, his eyes wide and his face set into an expression she had never seen him wear before.

"I can't even imagine how all this must be for you," she added, her tone softening. "You know he's a fake, but there's nothing you can do about it without either telling Yukina the truth or looking like a bad guy for sending away Yukina's oh-so-perfect brother. Seriously though, nobody is that perfect! I hate him!"

Botan's eyes wandered to the river; the sight of the sun sparkling on the water's surface was usually a calming sight for her to behold, but it was failing to ease her ire at that moment. She tried to stay focused on it and tried to calm down enough to stop shaking, but her concentration snapped when something touched the side of her face.

"Ow!" she yelped, leaning away from the source of the contact.

Hiei was still watching her with the same look on his face and his hand remained outstretched in the air between them, his fingers lingering at the point where they had prodded into her cheek.

"Don't touch it, it really hurts!" she told him.

Hiei's face changed then, finally back into an expression that Botan both recognised and found to be more typical for the fire demon: a sneer of anger.

"You shouldn't be getting involved in this, you meddlesome wretch!" he spat. "It's your own fault that he slapped you!"

"I was trying to help you, Hiei!" she argued back. "And he slapped me really hard!"

"You were about to slap him with your oar!" Hiei pointed out. "He was only retaliating. You were the one who initiated it!"

"He showed his true colours back there!" Botan replied. "You wouldn't have hit me like that, even if I had smacked you over the head with my oar!"

"No, I would have just used my sword to turn you into a kebab!"

"No you wouldn't have, Hiei! You would have just taken my oar from me, or broken it, called me a name and walked away! You're not an evil manipulative beast like Inukasai is!"

Botan faltered as Hiei's face momentarily returned to that unusual, indefinable expression. He quickly recovered his anger however.

"Why are you so angry about this?" he demanded.

"Because Yukina is my friend and that monster is lying to her and playing with her feelings!" Botan replied. "And because Yusuke, Kurama and even Kuwabara are being completely unreasonable by letting that boy get close to Yukina! They owe it to Yukina to shun him and they owe it to you to get rid of him!"

"This is my problem, not yours, or anyone else's!"

"This absolutely is my problem!"

"What?"

"I'm your friend, you obstinate idiot, and as such, I can't stand by and let this happen!"

Hiei's face reverted back to the unusual expression and Botan found her own anger fading; which she quickly regretted, as the rush of adrenaline her anger had generated had distracted her from the still searing pain all down one side of her face where Inukasai had slapped her so forcefully.

"You're not my friend," Hiei eventually said, his voice barely audible and his expression stuck somewhere between the unusual one and a sneer of disgust. "We don't even like each other."

"That's a fine way to talk to a friend who cheered you on all through the demon world tournament!" Botan snapped back at him.

"You-you were… What?"

"If I'm completely honest, I expected Yusuke to win, but I cheered for you and Kurama too, as my friends."

Hiei's face changed again, into yet another expression Botan had never seen him wear, though this time at least it looked vaguely like a pensive expression, which was slightly easier to process. Although Hiei was not exactly the pensive type, it was definitely easier to deal with him thinking than it was to deal with him looking what had almost seemed to be confused.

"Sit down."

Botan hesitated to respond to Hiei's quietly spoken order, but when he held his position, one finger pointed at a nearby rock, his eyes looking into hers unblinkingly, she conceded and did as he asked. Once she was seated, Hiei started to do something that made her wonder if she ought to have followed him in the first place: after all, he had hardly been agreeable to deal with.

"Hiei?" she said quietly. "What are you doing?"

Hiei did not answer her, instead finishing his task, his hands lowering from his head and taking his bandana with them.

"You can't control me with your jagan," she told him.

She tried to look defiant, but truthfully she was not sure about the claim she had just made. Hiei had not been able to control her with his jagan when they had first met, but he had not long acquired the third eye at that point, and since then he had honed his skills to the extent that he could use his jagan eye to master the dragon of the darkness flame. So maybe he could now control a ferry girl if he wanted to.

Botan's concern turned to confusion and more than a hint of curiosity when Hiei walked into the river, only moving in far enough that his booted feet were barely submerged, and then squatted down and pushed his hands – and his bandana – underwater. He held his position for several seconds before standing up, squeezing out his bandana and folding it over as he walked out of the river and towards the rock Botan was still sitting on. She wanted to ask him what he was doing, but instead she grunted as he grabbed the underside of her jaw a little roughly in one hand and tilted her head back and she yelped as he used his other hand to press his wet bandana against the side of her face.

"Ow!" she complained, closing her eye nearest the wound.

"If you don't take the heat out of it, it will hurt longer and bruise more," Hiei grumbled.

"I have healing powers, I could just heal it," Botan grumbled back.

Hiei slowly released his hold of her jaw, his eyes focusing onto hers.

"Then why don't you do that?" he asked her.

"Because I can't concentrate on it!" she replied. "Today has been an emotional rollercoaster for me! I'm angry, I'm sore and I'm scared!"

Hiei slowly took his bandana away from Botan's face, turning it around in his hand and then touching it to her skin again – though she noticed he was a little more careful when making contact.

"You shouldn't have got involved," he said.

She started to tell him again that he was her friend and that she had a duty as his friend to get involved, but she stopped abruptly when she heard him mutter something under his breath.

"Nobody else did."

Botan paused, something about the tone and flicker of bitterness in Hiei's eyes as he made the remark catching her attention.

"I heard everything you said to that imposter, and I heard everything he said back to you," Hiei said, his voice at conversational volume once more. "He probably won't let you anywhere near Yukina again, you do realise that, don't you? Your own rash stupidity has created this situation."

"It's not my fault I can't see Yukina any more," Botan replied.

"Yes, now you see that it's my fault–"

"It's Inukasai's fault! And Yusuke's fault! And Kurama's fault! And even Kuwabara! They should have been the ones telling that pretender to sling his hook! Why did it have to be me?"

"Why did it have to be you?"

"I don't know! And now I'm too scared to go back! He hit me really hard, Hiei!"

Hiei dropped his bandana, but Botan barely noticed as her eyes were blurring up with tears.

"He shouldn't have hit you like that," Hiei muttered.

Botan sniffled and tried to squint through her tears to see Hiei's face, but she could not make out the setting of his features to define his thoughts at that moment.

"I'm just glad you were there to hit him back for me!" she said. "I wasn't fast enough or strong enough to hurt him as badly as he hurt me!"

"I didn't hit him to avenge you, you simple-minded cretin!" Hiei snapped.

"Yes you did! You were sticking up for me because we're friends!"

"No, I was hitting him because he's a disgrace to demons for attacking someone as defenceless as you are! It was humiliating for me to watch, it was a wound to my pride!"

"Stop pretending to be tough, Hiei! You did it because you were defending me, as your friend, in the same way I took him out to the garden and tried to make him leave Yukina alone because I was defending your interests, as my friend."

When Hiei did not answer her, Botan thought that maybe he was just too proud to admit that she was right. She wiped her sleeves over her face, clearing away tears and the wetness from Hiei's bandana and then looked up at Hiei, finding him still standing in front of her, his face once more in that unusual expression.

"We have to fix this, Hiei," she told him. "Maybe everybody else has fallen for that mean boy's false charm, but I know what he really is. He's a dog in the manger, and we're going to flush him out. He's not going to carry on pretending to be Yukina's brother and nor are you going to be forced to tell Yukina the truth before you want to or are ready to."

"Hn, you almost sound like you have a plan," Hiei quietly replied, a hint of an ironic smirk on his face.

"I do have a plan Hiei," she replied, nodding her head. "I'm great at making plans."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Well believe it, mister! Now listen closely, here's what we're going to do: you are going to return to demon world and see what you can find out about this "Inukasai" fellow, and I am going to go to spirit world to see what I can find out about him."

"Spirit world?"

"Yes."

"You think you'll find answers in spirit world?"

"We have a lot of information on the ice village in spirit world. How else did you think Koenma knew about your relation to Yukina?"

Hiei's eyes widened into a rare look of surprise.

"We have a liaison officer who deals with the ice village," Botan continued. "We need to maintain a good relationship with the ice maidens because they provide us with hirui stones, which allow us to send undercover agents into demon world with currency to buy information from snitches and to buy back artefacts it would be too dangerous to take back by force."

It was not something Botan was supposed to discuss with anyone outside of spirit world, but Hiei was part of the former spirit detective team and she trusted him as her friend not to divulge the information – especially as it concerned his place of birth and his ancestors.

"If this Inukasai really was born in the ice village, we will have a record of it in spirit world," she continued. "I don't know how detailed that record will be, but we should at least be able to get a date of birth and possibly his real mother's name. Then we can offer the facts to him, and if he still insists on attaching himself to Yukina, I will show the facts to her."

Hiei twitched and Botan hurriedly corrected herself.

"The facts about his own life," she said. "Not Yukina's or yours. That's none of his business."

Hiei nodded.

"Alright then," Botan said, standing up. "Let's go. We'll meet back here later. How long do you think you'll need to find answers?"

Hiei looked a little lost, but after a short pause he answered her.

"Meet me back here at midnight."

Botan nodded and summoned her oar. When she saw that Hiei still looked a little lost she took a chance and did something she knew he hated: she touched him.

"Try not to worry, Hiei," she said. "We will fix this."

When he did not push her hand away as she had expected him to she gave his shoulder a slight squeeze and smiled at him.

"I promise you we will fix this, Hiei," she said.

She then lifted her hand from his shoulder and flew up into the sky, trying to ignore the fact that, without Hiei's bandana against it, the heat and sting of the red mark on one side of her face was returning.

* * *

Hiei remained where he was, watching the sky at the point the ferry girl had disappeared, staying that way until long after she had gone. Why was she the only person who understood exactly how he felt and sided with him absolutely on how the matter should be dealt with? It was highly illogical and deeply frustrating.

Mukuro ought to have sided with him. She ought to have known it was not him in those photos and in that video attacking the border patrol unit. She should have listened to him and believed him when he denied it. She should have considered what he had said about his own unit being witnesses to the truth of his alibi. She should have at least had the decency – had the respect for him – to call him to her office alone, rather than to humiliate him in front of his peers and then reduce her knowledge of him to something as simplistic as his height. If even that idiot ferry girl could spot the difference and identify Inukasai as an imposter, why did someone as intelligent and capable as Mukuro ever doubt Hiei's innocence?

Kurama was just as bad – or perhaps more so – for being someone who ought to have known Hiei long enough and well enough not to be fooled by a stranger telling stories. Kurama was supposed to be Hiei's ally and Kurama was one of the few who knew and understood Hiei's feelings for his sister and why he never wanted her to know who he was: so why then had Kurama not done more to help him get rid of that lying, smooth-talking bastard? Kurama was supposed to be the sensible one who always knew the best and right thing to do, but he had made an erroneous judgement in this situation; one that Hiei was struggling to fathom and growing to resent.

Yusuke was supposed to be the one Hiei could always count on to see common sense. Apart from Hiei himself, Yusuke had the least patience for fakers. Yusuke was the one who usually reserved judgement of someone new until he had tested them somehow – usually with his fists – and yet he did not seem to care what Inukasai was doing. Yusuke was not the sort to stand by and watch one of his friends be wronged, but he was certainly standing well back this time, and being far too flippant about the whole issue. The way he was behaving would only really make any sense if Inukasai was ruining the life of someone he barely knew; but Inukasai was ruining Hiei's life, and Hiei thought that Yusuke was his friend. He had expected the mazoku to, at the very least, tell Inukasai to leave and suggest to Yukina that she do a little investigating before just accepting him as her brother.

Even a pity whiff of scepticism from Kuwabara would have been welcome. Hiei did not especially care for Kuwabara, but – in some aspects at least – he did respect him, and as he was so close to Yukina, Hiei considered it Kuwabara's duty to protect her from people like Inukasai. But, instead of questioning what was happening and keeping Inukasai away from Yukina until he knew otherwise, that idiot Kuwabara had welcomed the liar into his home with open arms.

Even Kuwabara's sister or Yusuke's girlfriend questioning things would have been better.

But instead, Hiei's only ally was the ferry girl: easily his least favourite of everyone who had been in the house that night. Even Koenma himself was a better choice of ally. The ferry girl was scatter-brained, loud-mouthed and thoughtless: no-one else of her pitifully weak power ranking would have been stupid enough to take a shot at a demon of Inukasai's strength – which was easily A-class – and then been surprised when she did not manage to injure him. He could hardly even believe that she thought they were friends: when had either of them ever shared a moment that implied they were friends? She was just Yusuke's secretary from spirit world and Koenma's messenger.

However, she did sometimes prove useful in turning up information, and if what she had said about spirit world holding detailed records on the ice village was true, she would be the best person to access that information – since she would give him the answers without the interrogation that Koenma surely would before parting with it.

He did have slight reservations about her ability to communicate the information back to him though. He realised then that he probably ought to have asked her to just bring him the files in question, since she apparently was unable to remember and apply information correctly.

After all, she had called Inukasai a "dog in the manger" as though the phrase meant someone who was ruining something for someone else, and that was not the correct definition of that term.

A dog in the manger was a man who wanted a woman to love him, and although he would never return or validate her affections, neither would he let any other man have her.

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Botan confides Hiei's problem in Koenma, and the reaction the prince has leaves her shocked – in more ways than one. Hiei overhears Inukasai sabotaging Yukina's feelings for both him and Botan and finally Botan has a very awkward run-in with the SDF. **Chapter 4 – Nature Versus Nurture**


	4. Nature vs Nurture

**A/N: **Thanks for the reviews – it's funny to me that this fic is more popular than the last one I wrote, I guess I've been writing Hiei/Botan so long, it's the only thing I can do any more!

* * *

**Chapter 4 – Nature vs Nurture**

Botan stood outside King Enma's temple for some time as she healed the side of her face. She had not seen it to know what the mark had looked like, but it had felt terrible. Yusuke had slapped her before when she had irritated him, but he had never used enough strength to leave her still feeling the sting and burn of the blow for so long afterwards. She supposed that Yusuke had been jokingly slapping her over the head whereas Inukasai had aggressively slapped her across the face; and the fact that he had slapped her across the face instead of just taking her oar or pushing her down was somehow even more insulting.

Of course, she knew why he had reacted as he had. The reason he had attacked her with so much force was the same reason he had looked so panicked when Hiei had come to her rescue: he knew he was lying to Yukina, he knew he was moving in on Hiei's territory, and he had not liked meeting someone who questioned him on it. He was a scheming snake, and Botan was going to make sure he got his comeuppance. Nobody messed Yukina about and interfered with Hiei's life like that and got away with it: not on Botan's watch.

Botan thought that Hiei had done a stellar job of pretending not to want her help, but she knew that was just because he was stubborn and proud. She knew that he only said they were not friends because he was trying to deter her from getting hurt any more than she already had been by getting more deeply involved. She knew that he had rushed to her rescue in Kuwabara's garden because they were friends and he could not let anyone hurt her. And she knew that, once they had dealt with Inukasai, Hiei would never thank her or act grateful or in any way pleased that she had assisted him with his dilemma, but that was just the way Hiei was: he would never outwardly express his emotions, but Botan would know that, deep down, he was pleased that she was doing what Yusuke and Kurama were apparently unable or unwilling to.

Once she had finished healing herself and taken a few calming deep breaths, Botan continued into the temple, quickly making her way to Koenma's office. She would need his approval to access the files she needed and she knew that, once she had explained the situation to him, he would surely come to aid her search, and he was so much quicker at finding files than she was.

"Good morning, Koenma!" she said cheerfully as she entered his office.

"Not now Botan, can't you see I'm busy?" Koenma grumbled.

Botan stopped, halfway across the office, wondering if she was missing something. Koenma did not look especially busy, after all, as he was standing on his desk and glaring at George, and both were tugging at a plate of sweet rice cakes.

"Sir, this is important," she tried.

"So is this!" Koenma said, without taking his eyes off the ogre. "I said you could have one, not one plateful!"

"You said I could have what was on your desk, Lord Koenma!" George argued. "This plate was on your desk, it's not fair to change the rules now!"

"Koenma, this is very important!" Botan insisted.

"I know it is!" Koenma said, his eyes still locked on George. "There are four cakes on this plate: what sort of fool does this blue idiot think I am that I would promise him four cakes?"

"Koenma Sir, something terrible has happened and I need your advice and help immediately!" Botan said, striding up to Koenma's desk.

Koenma turned his head to look at her, and in his moment of distraction, George tugged the plate. Koenma yelped and held on, but his response came a little too late, and the plate ended up flinging across the room, spilling the cakes on the floor.

"Well I don't want them now," Koenma said.

Both Koenma and Botan cringed when George threw himself onto the floor and began gathering up the cakes, happily munching them down.

"What were you saying, Botan?" Koenma asked.

"Sir, it's about Hiei," Botan replied, turning to face him fully.

"Hiei?" Koenma echoed. "Hmm, I didn't think we'd hear anything about him now that he's gone back to demon world."

"It's not just about Hiei, Sir," Botan continued. "It's also about a mean, sneaky, evil demon called Inukasai!"

"Inukasai? Sounds like he's from the dog demon tribe."

"He is. And he's really mean."

"Get to the point Botan, I don't have all day: I need to get to the kitchen to order four more rice cakes to replace the ones you and the ogre just ruined."

"Right, well, Inukasai attacked the border patrol in demon world and he has arrived in the living world."

"Ah, I see. Hiei is going to apprehend him and return him to demon world, as is his duty as part of the border patrol guard. Why are you bothering me with this? Hiei is very capable: he'll apprehend that dog demon and get him back to demon world in no time."

"Sir, Inukasai isn't a dog demon."

"But you just said–"

"He's an emiko, just like Hiei."

"What? Why didn't you say so right at the start?"

"I was trying to tell you Sir, but you were too busy fighting George for those cakes!"

Koenma sighed and hopped back into his seat behind his desk.

"Alright Botan, you have my undivided attention," he said. "Now tell me what's going on immediately!"

"An emiko by the name of Inukasai fought off the border patrol and crossed over in the living world last night," Botan replied. "He went to see Yukina, and he's claming to be her brother!"

"Interesting…"

Botan hesitated, momentarily thrown off of her train of thought by Koenma's unexpected unenthusiastic response.

"Right," she said as she tried to regain her composure. "Well, this fellow, this emiko, Inukasai, spent the night at the Kuwabara family house last night, and when I was visiting this morning he was still there, and he has managed to convince Yukina, Kuwabara and Keiko that he actually is Yukina's missing brother."

"Interesting…"

Botan twitched and squeezed her hands together beneath her sleeves, but again she fought back the urge to snap at Koenma for his continuing calm demeanour.

"Shizuru was there too, Sir," she said, her voice sounding tenser to even her own ears. "And even though she knows that Hiei is Yukina's long lost brother, she has accepted Inukasai into the household. Yusuke and Kurama were also there, and neither of them really seem to care about the absolute outrage of it all! It's a travesty of justice! It's the worst possible thing Koenma Sir, and I cannot stand idly by and allow it to continue! I need access to the files on the ice village Sir, and I need it right now!"

Koenma waved a hand at Botan in a way that, in her wound up state, she found to be patronising.

"Botan, try to stay focused her," he said. "I have some questions about this "Inukasai" before we can act. First of all, are we sure that he is an emiko from the ice village?"

"Yes Sir," Botan replied. "He even looks almost identical to Hiei."

"Very interesting…" Koenma said.

"Sir, stop saying that!" Botan snapped. "This isn't "interesting", it's devastating!"

"Botan, control yourself!" Koenam snapped back. "So where has this Inukasai been? What happened to him after he was born? Was he born in the ice village? Was he cast out, just like Hiei?"

"He was born in the ice village, he was cast out, and when he fell, his father caught him, and brought him back to–"

"His father?"

"Yes Sir. His father is the leader of the dog demon tribe, hence why he was named Inukasai–"

"So his father cared about him?"

"Yes. His father raised him with the other dog demons, but he always told him that his mother was an ice maiden."

"Very, very interesting."

"Sir!"

"What sort of personality does Inukasai have?"

"A sly, corrupt, conniving, back-stabbing, cheating, evil, manipulative, vicious, cruel, horrid, sneaky–"

"Botan!"

Botan staggered back a step as Koenma leapt up onto his desk again, leaning towards her to glare at her angrily.

"Focus, Botan," he said sternly. "This is very, very important: what sort of personality does Inukasai actually have?"

Botan pouted and slumped her shoulders.

"I see," Koenma said almost instantly upon witnessing her reaction. "So he has a very congenial personality."

"Were you even listening to a single word I said?" Botan growled.

"Yes, yes, he's rubbed you up the wrong way for one reason or another, but otherwise he is the perfect gentleman–"

"Sir, the nasty, skinny jerkface is lying to Yukina! Just think how that poor girl is going to fare: first she feels the elation of finding her brother, then she feels the misery of realising what a nasty piece of work he is, then she finds out that he's a fake and she goes through the pain of losing her brother and being no closer to finding her real brother! And what about Hiei? Poor Hiei is having to bear witness to all this, and nobody is helping him because they all think Inukasai is such a nice guy, and Yukina and Kuwabara like him so well – maybe Kuwabara should just marry Inukasai, since he likes him so much – it's ridiculous, it doesn't even make any sense, surely someone can see how ludicrous this all is–"

"Botan!"

Botan stopped abruptly as she heard Koenma's voice echoing her name off the walls around her. She had never heard Koenma shout loud enough to create an echo before, and that was really quite surprising, as Koenma often shouted, especially with George as his assistant.

"Botan, what you're describing to me isn't something that requires access to the spirit world files on the ice village to solve it," Koenma recovered.

"I need to find out who Inukasai's real mother is so that I can tell him and he'll leave us all alone!" Botan quickly said.

Koenma shook his head.

"We don't have that information in our files," he said. "The birth of an emiko into the glacial village is a great source of shame for the ice maidens, and it's not something they discuss with outsiders."

"But they must!" Botan insisted. "You said you knew Hiei was from the ice village and related to Yukina because our liaison officer for the ice village told you as much!"

"That's true, but that was an exceptional case: our liaison officer was aware of Hiei's return to the ice village, and as we already had information on Hiei in spirit world as a known criminal, the information was added to Hiei's file."

"But you said you knew he was Yukina's brother!"

"Yes, our officer spoke to the ice maidens about his visit, and they did reveal to our agent that Hiei's mother was an ice maiden named Hina – who had sadly passed away – and that he had a twin sister named Yukina."

"Then there's the proof! Where is our liaison officer? I need her to come to the living world with me and tell Inukasai what a faker he is!"

"That's not going to happen, Botan."

"Well then you must do it! Or else give me some written evidence and I will do it!"

"That's not going to happen either, Botan."

Botan paused, realising then that Koenma's tone had changed since she had asked to show Inukasai the proof that he was not Yukina's brother.

"You cannot, under any circumstances, deter Inukasai from his current venture," Koenma said, his tone still set at that pitch that Botan found so displeasing and unsettling. "Do you understand me, Botan?"

"Sir…" Botan said weakly. "Are you… Are you suggesting that we let Yukina think that this impostor actually is her brother?"

"That's exactly what I'm suggesting," Koenma flatly replied, much to her horror. "Did you say the others are not deterring him?"

Botan slowly shook her head.

"Perfect," Koenma said, nodding his head and returning to his seat.

"But Sir…" Botan whispered. "What about Hiei?"

"Botan, are you familiar with the two colour system?"

Botan's face dropped.

"I… I don't understand," she said. "What does that have to do with what I've just told you? Hiei is in the middle of a crisis and–"

"And Hiei's crisis has created laboratory-perfect conditions to carry out the ultimate social experiment to test the true merit of the two colour system."

Botan shook her head.

"A soul, Botan, is born one of two colours," Koenma continued. "Souls are either red – fundamentally evil – or blue – fundamentally good. What shade of red or blue a soul is can change in a lifetime, but a red soul never becomes a blue soul, and vice versa. Or at least, that's what we think. When you told me about Inukasai, the first thing that occurred to me was that he was born an emiko, and therefore he was born with a red soul: but, if he is the person you describe, he has possibly turned his soul blue. I want to know if that's possible. And the only way to find that out, is to see what happens if we keep him around."

"Sir, that's immoral," Botan said. "You can't just toy with people's lives for the sake of an experiment like that! If you are so interested in the colour of Inukasai's soul, why don't you go cut him open and find out what colour it is for yourself? You don't have to ruin Hiei's life to get your answers!"

"There is also the question as to what colour Hiei's soul is."

Botan tried to answer Koenma, but both words and her voice failed her.

"And the question of what colour it will be after this ordeal."

Botan's jaw dropped open.

"Botan, do you remember how, after I fired Yusuke as spirit detective, after the border patrol was implemented in demon world, and there was just generally no need for you to conduct any work outside of your duties as a ferry girl, and you came to me and asked if you could be promoted to another position with spirit world?"

Botan gave a very slight nod of her head: which was the most she could manage as she was still struck by disbelief at the direction Koenma had taken the conversation.

"How would you like to put to use all those skills you learned whilst working as assistant to the spirit detective?" Koenma continued. "How would you like to become an actual detective for spirit world?"

"Are you asking me to be the new spirit detective?" Botan asked, confusion momentarily overtaking shock and allowing her to speak.

"No," Koenam replied. "This is more of a researcher role than a hands-on, crime fighting role."

"…I don't understand…"

"Botan, I want you to follow Hiei."

"Why?"

"Because I want to know everything he does now that this has happened. I will keep watch over Inukasai and Yukina myself, but I want you to follow Hiei and study how he processes all of this. Note down everything, Botan, and I mean everything: I want to know when he sleeps – if he sleeps – I want to know what he eats, what he drinks, where he goes, who he sees and any outbursts of emotion or unusual behaviour or actions are especially important to take note of. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I do understand. You're asking me to spy on my friend. You're asking me to allow his hurt to perpetuate so that you can exploit it for the sake of adding another tab to our files."

"Don't take this so personally, Botan. This isn't something you or I have inflicted upon Hiei, this is something he has inflicted upon himself."

"What? How can you say that?"

"Because it's the truth. Hiei didn't tell Yukina the truth, and now this has happened. And what has happened is an ideal opportunity for us to investigate. So, Botan, I'd like you to report to Captain Ootake immediately, tell him I sent you, and tell him you need fitted out."

Botan's eyes doubled in size.

"F-fitted out, Sir?" she said. "Y-your asking to j-join the Special Defence Force?"

Koenma sighed as though she had just said something ridiculous.

"Go to Captain Ootake, tell him you have been assigned a mission by me that may involve work in demon world," he explained. "The SDF know better than anyone how to stay undercover in demon world, they will arrange clothing, money and information for you, should you need to go to demon world to keep track of Hiei."

Botan screwed up her face.

"What now, Botan?" Koenma growled, his patience clearly waning.

"The SDF go to demon world in the most conspicuous outfits imaginable, Sir," she replied. "I'd be better hidden in my pink kimono than one of those ugly uniforms they wear."

"The SDF don't just go to demon world in their uniforms," Koenma replied. "Sometimes they go undercover, like our liaison officer to the glacial village does. They are very familiar with the main entrances to demon world, they understand the local customs, dialects, fashions and code of conduct. Go there, get yourself some clothes, some money, some information and then find Hiei. What day is it today?"

"It's Friday, Sir."

"Alright then, I want you to report back to me every Friday. Return here, write up a summary of what you have learned and present it to me. I will do the same for Inukasai, and we can compare notes and see what develops."

"We can compare notes and see what develops?"

"Yes. We can monitor and see if Inukasai has indeed managed to change the actual colour of his soul and whether or not this crisis for Hiei causes the hue of his soul to change any."

"We can monitor whether or not this crisis for Hiei causes the hue of his soul to change any?"

"Yes, that is the point of this experiment."

"The point of this experiment."

"Why are you repeating everything I'm saying?"

"I just want to be sure that I've understood you, Sir."

"Alright… Botan, if you're not ready to handle this sort of role, I can easily arrange for someone else to–"

"No Sir. It's fine. I can do this."

Koenma gave Botan a hard, sceptical look and she tried her hardest not to be affected by it: she knew he was suspicious of her sudden compliance and she knew that he could probably see right through her, but she was determined not to let her true feelings show in the off-chance that she could convince him otherwise. After all, there was nothing he could possibly say or do that would convince her that spying on Hiei was the right thing to do.

"I'm counting on you, Botan," he said. "If you can do this, there might be a future for you in the council."

Botan's mind went blank.

"The council, Sir?" she said faintly.

"Yes, the council, Botan," Koenma replied.

"I could be a member of the council?"

"Yes."

"I could wear those fancy robes and sit at that big table with you and your father and Captain Ootake and all the other important people of spirit world and make decisions?"

"Yes."

"…That's a big deal."

"Yes it is."

Botan nodded.

"I'll see you next Friday then?"

Botan smiled and bowed her head, before hurriedly leaving Koenma's office. As she shuffled down the corridor beyond towards the quarters kept by the Special Defence Force officers, Botan pondered what part of her conversation with Koenma had been more shocking and more difficult to process: that he wanted to perpetuate Hiei's pain, that he expected her to spy on Hiei or that he was considering her for membership in the spirit world council: a position every spirit in spirit world – including Botan – secretly coveted.

* * *

"Aw, do you really gotta go?" Kuwabara said.

"I'm afraid I must, Mister Kuwabara," Inukasai replied. "And I cannot but thank you for your kind hospitality."

"Hey man, it's no problem," Kuwabara replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. "You're welcome to come back here any time. We're practically family, right?"

Inukasai smiled.

"I cannot tell you how much it warms my heart to see that my sister has such kind friends and such a devoted man as yourself in her life, Mister Kuwabara," he said.

"Oh yeah, Yukina is my number one priority," Kuwabara replied.

"I can vouch for that," Shizuru said dryly. "He's got another exam on Monday morning and he still hasn't learned all the formulae he's meant to know for it, but instead of studying, he's standing here kissing your ass just because your Yukina's brother."

"Oh please, Miss Kuwabara, don't direct your ire at your brother," Inukasai said to her. "I am to blame for distracting him so. I'm not sure when I'll be able to return here again, but I promise it shall not be before Mister Kuwabara has finished his exams."

"No, I'd rather you came back as soon as you can," Shizuru replied. "Next time you come, you can spend some time with Yukina and then my baby bro doesn't have any excuse for skipping out on his studying, because his biggest distraction isn't around."

"Shizuru!" Kuwabara moaned. "You're making me sound like one of those loser guys who skips out on his responsibilities to go chasing after girls!"

"Change the "girls" to "a girl", and that's pretty much what you are, Kazuma," Shizuru flatly answered him.

"We should go," Yukina said to Inukasai.

She looped her arm through his and guided him towards the door. As they stepped out onto the porch they stopped to look back at Kuwabara and Shizuru, who had dissolved into a full-blown argument with each other.

"They can go all night sometimes," Yukina said, smiling up at her brother.

"They are both very spirited," Inukasai replied.

"Maybe if we had grown up together, we would have argued like that sometimes," Yukina said as they continued on their way.

"I can't imagine that, Yukina," Inukasai replied. "You are such a sweet girl, I could never find a reason to disagree with you. And I am a very affable person – I always have been – so I'm sure you would never have found cause to lose your temper or raise your voice so to me."

"Smarmy prick!"

Hiei crept to the edge of the roof of the Kuwabara's house, peering over the guttering as his sister walked down the street, arm in arm with the biggest creep he had ever had the misfortune to cross paths with. As he watched them go, Hiei silently wished that Inukasai had attacked the patrol unit he had been in charge of: because, unlike the leader of the unit Inukasai attacked, Hiei would not have hesitated to kill him.

"I'm so glad that you like all my friends, brother," Yukina said.

"How could I not?" Inukasai replied. "Not only are they all wonderful people, but it is clear that they all care about you and your interests: of course I would like such people."

"I hope I can come to demon world and meet your friends too," Yukina said. "I'd really like to meet your father."

"I know my father would love to meet you, Yukina. He adored our mother, and, if what Miss Rui told me is correct, you look exactly like our mother, and so seeing your face truly would be a gift for my father. You would be very welcomed in Inugoya. Our tribe are generally welcoming, but we are especially welcoming of friends and family."

"It sounds lovely. Could I bring Kazuma with me too?"

"I would like that very much."

"Lying bastard, nobody likes Kuwabara joining in!"

Hiei jumped onto the roof of the house next to Kuwabara's, moving closer to the direction Yukina and Inukasai were heading without moving close enough to be seen. He was using his jagan eye to distort his energy signal to avoid Inukasai detecting his presence, but as there was still a risk that he would be seen by either his sister or the faker, he had to stay out of sight as he followed them.

"It's not far to the nearest portal," Yukina said.

"You never return to demon world yourself, Yukina?" Inukasai asked.

"No, I haven't returned there for some time now," Yukina replied. "I'm not really welcome in the glacial village any more. The elders didn't approve of me leaving to search for you."

"Not to worry, they didn't approve of my return visit and nor am I welcome back there! But I have to wonder, if you never visit demon world yourself, how is it that you know where the portals to demon world are located?"

"Mister Hiei showed me where they are."

"Mister Hiei?"

"Oh, I know Mister Hiei maybe seemed a little rude today, but he's not normally that way. I know you'll get to like him once you get to know him. He's a very strong fighter and he's very honourable."

"I see. Who exactly is Mister Hiei, anyway?"

"He's another friend. He's a master of the jagan eye."

"He's a jaganshi? That's an unusual trait for an emiko."

"Bastard, she didn't tell you I'm an emiko! You just admitted that you're sneaking around knowing more than you let on!"

Hiei leapt to another rooftop, craning his neck to watch as Yukina and Inukasai turned a corner in the street. Surely now, he thought to himself, that the sly cheater had just slipped up, Yukina would notice his mistake and at the very least call him on it.

"Mister Hiei had his jagan eye surgically implanted," she said instead.

"How barbaric," Inukasai replied. "I can't imagine anyone wanting to do something so desperate."

Hiei gripped his hands into the roof tiles at either side of his feet, only realising his mistake when they imploded into piles of dust under the force of his grip. Vaguely aware that what he had done was a bad thing and might draw attention to his location, he leapt down to the ground, landing on the street about ten yards behind his sister and the phony. He quickly concealed himself behind a postbox, baring his teeth and calling Inukasai every insulting name he could think of inside his head.

"As an emiko myself, I can't imagine why one of my kind would need or even want to acquire such a power," Inukasai continued. "He must have been an exceptionally weak emiko to have required the upgrade."

"I don't know about that," Yukina replied, still apparently blissfully unaware that Inukasai kept referencing the fact that Hiei had been born of the ice village too. "I don't know very much about Mister Hiei's past. I don't think anyone does."

"You can tell a lot about someone from their past," Inukasai said.

"I disagree. My past was living in ignorance in the ice village. I wouldn't want someone to think I was the same as those who have never left the ice village. I believe we evolve with time, as part of the decisions we make and the trials we endure."

"Still, you should be cautious. Some people never truly break away from what they started out as. For example, that ferry girl who visited you today."

"Botan?"

"Yes. Do you know her well?"

"Yes. She's one of my best friends."

"It concerns me that you would say that."

"Why?"

"To start with, you should know that agents of spirit world will never truly trust a demon. She may well have a hidden agenda for wanting to get so close to you."

"But Botan can't keep a secret. Koenma would never trust her to carry out a secret mission like spying on a demon, because she would give herself away eventually."

"So she can't be trusted?"

"Oh, no, I didn't mean it like that. Botan's honesty is one of her best qualities."

"She's very highly strung, don't you think?"

"I think she's very kind and friendly."

"I think she has a short temper, she's thoughtless and, if you say she can't keep a secret, she's really not very trustworthy. I myself wouldn't take such a person as a friend."

"I would take her as a friend before I'd even spit on you, you sly bastard. That ferry girl might be tempestuous, stupid and overly chatty, but she's worth a hundred of you!"

Hiei dropped into a row of bushes at the edge of the park Yukina and Inukasai had walked into. The portal to demon world was beyond the park, over the middle of an adjoining farm field. They would be there in a matter of minutes, which was a relief to Hiei, as he was growing tired of listening to Inukasai's pitch-perfect voice talking such nonsense. He sounded like one of the demons who worked in the pawn shops Hiei had frequented in his days as a bandit: always making it sound like he was giving a fair deal, but all the while subtly turning the situation to his own advantage. Hiei had been ripped off by more pawn shop owners than he cared to remember, and he began to wonder if any of those he had been particularly badly screwed over by had been dog demons.

"Botan is my friend," Yukina said.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Inukasai replied.

"You didn't like her?" Yukina asked.

"Not at all, no."

"Oh dear. I don't understand why. Botan is always so friendly with everyone she meets. She's a ferry girl, it's in her nature to try to make amends with any soul she encounters."

"Yukina, my dear sister, your so-called friend Botan didn't take me out to the garden to show me the plants, as she said she had."

"She didn't?"

"No. She took me out there to threaten me. She tried to attack me, she tried to force me to leave. She tried to tell me I shouldn't come back to see you again. If she really was your friend Yukina, why would she push away the brother she knows you have longed to find for so long?"

"I don't understand… Botan's always been supportive of me finding my brother…"

"I suspect she was sent by spirit world to chase me off. You really shouldn't trust that woman. I know you are a sweet and trusting girl Yukina, but some people are not worthy of your grace: and that ferry girl Botan is one such person. In fact, as your brother, I would advise you to distance yourself from her."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"So was it Botan that punched you in the face and left you unconscious in the garden?"

"No, she called for Mister Hiei to attack me. They appear to be working together, conspiring against us."

"Mister Hiei attacked you?"

"Yes. Botan was whacking me with her oar – what could I do, she is a woman, and a weak one at that, not to mention that she is an agent of spirit world, I could hardly hit her back – and as I was trying to hold off her blows, Mister Hiei snuck up and sucker-punched me. I didn't see the attack coming and hadn't prepared myself for it: if I had protected myself with my demon energy, I would have hurt Botan, as her oar would have rebounded off of my body. I don't understand why they would ambush me so, sister. I've never encountered such hostile beings in all my life."

"Lying snake!"

Hiei slipped behind the trunk of a large tree, peering around it at Yukina and Inukasai, who had reached the fence that separated the park from the field.

"Please sister, be cautious around those two," Inukasai said, taking Yukina's hand in both of his. "I wouldn't want any harm to befall you."

"I don't understand," Yukina replied. "Mister Hiei has always been very helpful to me and Botan has always been so kind to me."

"You can't see their true natures because you are the sort of sweet girl who only sees the best in people," Inukasai replied. "They have cruelly deceived you with a façade of lies."

"Look who's talking…" Hiei grumbled under his breath.

"I must go," Inukasai continued. "I will figure out a way to return to you soon though. In the mean time, if you are able to come to demon world at all then please do. You would be very welcome in Inugoya."

"Okay," Yukina replied. "Take care, brother."

Inukasai smiled in a way that literally made Hiei's stomach swirl as though he might wretch at any moment, and then he pulled Yukina into a dramatic embrace. She returned his gesture a little awkwardly, but as Hiei could only see the back of her head from the angle he was watching them from, he could not be sure how awkward she actually felt without using his jagan eye – which he decided against doing. Inukasai shortly released Yukina and waved a hand in a manner that made Hiei want to wretch again, before leaping over the fence and darting through the portal with speed and agility that only Hiei's eyes had been able to follow.

Yukina stood for several seconds longer, watching the faint, liquefied area that marked the portal, as though she still expected to see Inukasai. Eventually she appeared to accept that he was gone and she turned around and started back the way. Hiei followed her back – it was late, it was dark, and she was alone, after all – until she reached the street Kuwabara lived on, whereupon Kuwabara himself appeared, making excuses about his sister and apologising for not walking with Yukina to the portal. As Yukina began dismissing his concerns, Hiei turned and fled in the opposite direction: he knew that his sister was safe, and by the position of the stars and the moon in the sky, he also knew that he was late for his meeting with the ferry girl.

* * *

"What the devil is a cagoule?"

"Something that you'll need in demon world."

Botan frowned and nodded, watching intently as Captain Ootake rifled through a box of clothing before eventually producing something and holding it up in front of her.

"That's just a raincoat, Sir," she pointed out.

"It's a cagoule," he corrected her. "And in demon world, the temperature is typically quite high, even during rainstorms, so this sort of raincoat is invaluable."

"So it is a raincoat then…"

Botan accepted the coat from him, folding it up and stuffing it into the kitbag she had already almost filled with clothing.

"I think we've covered all possibilities," Ootake said then, much to her relief. "Now that you have everything you need, I should go over the basics with you."

"Right," Botan said with a nod of her head.

"Don't cover up your face or dress too extravagantly," he said. "You will make yourself conspicuous if you overdo your outfits. Remember that less is more."

"Will do."

"What did I just say?"

"Less is more?"

"Remember that."

"Okay…"

Botan and the Special Defence Force leader exchanged sceptical looks.

"Don't throw money around, and never pay someone the price they ask for something," the captain continued.

"Isn't that stealing or just plain bad form?" Botan asked.

"It's called "bartering" and it's how business is conducted in demon world," Ootake replied.

"Okay."

"You will be recognised as an outsider, and everyone you meet will try to overcharge you for anything they sell you. You must always argue the price down. Ideally start by offering half of what they have told you the price is. Even if you are in a market and the prices are written up on a board or a price tag, always start by offering at least half of the price. They will argue back and forth with you until you can both agree a price: never pay the full stated price, and ideally never pay more than three-quarters of the stated price."

"Right."

"What did I just say?"

"Argue the price. Offer half, negotiate, never pay full price."

"Okay. Next up, don't drink anything unless you know what it is, and don't ever drink anything alcoholic: demon world liquor is infinitely stronger than that found in the living world."

"Don't get drunk. Can do."

"Don't smoke anything, either."

"I don't smoke."

"Don't start."

"Right."

"Before you eat anything, use the test strips I gave you to check for toxins, poisons and inedible materials. If anything tests positive, don't eat it. Don't even touch it if you can avoid doing so."

"Understood."

"Don't share drinking containers or utensils with anyone. Always wash your hands thoroughly before eating and especially so after using the bathroom."

"Certainly."

"Don't copulate with any demons."

Botan paused, only awakening from her moment of shock as she started to feel her face grow hot.

"I-I beg your pardon?" she said quietly.

"Don't have sex with anyone," Ryuhi said.

Botan glanced over at the young female Special Defence Force officer, who was standing combing her curly yellow hair in front of a locker room mirror. When Botan turned back to Ootake, she found him watching her almost expectantly.

"Don't have sex with anyone Botan," he said firmly. "Do you understand?"

"What sort of girl do you take me for?" she snapped, her face growing uncomfortably hot.

"The sort of girl who'd be anybody's after one can of demon world beer and nobody's after two cans of demon world beer."

"Thank you, Ryuhi!" Botan yelled.

Ryuhi shrugged before stowing her comb in her bag and then lifting the bag over her shoulder. Botan watched her leave before turning back to the Special Defence Force captain.

"I'm only going to demon world to monitor Hiei," she said. "How would I even have the chance to… Get involved with anyone like that?"

"I saw the way you behaved at Koenma's last birthday party," Ootake flatly replied.

"I had no idea the punch was alcoholic!" Botan cried defensively. "I would never have had seven glasses of it had I known!"

"The punch was made of strawberry juice and lemonade."

Botan twitched, her shoulders squared, her arms stiff and straight at her sides, her hands balled into fists and her entire body quivering.

"Don't go to any parties or festivities of any kind," Ootake suggested. "If you absolutely have to go to some sort of celebratory event, stay sober, stay calm and don't flirt with anyone."

"I wasn't flirting!" Botan wailed.

"You draped yourself over one of the boys who tends the crop fields and spent the first part of the night asking him which part of your body he found most alluring. Then, when he eventually managed to escape from you, you crawled under a table and cried and complained that nobody loved you."

"I was drunk!"

"There was no alcohol at the party."

"I was caught up in the party mood!"

"Don't let it happen in demon world."

"I won't!"

"Alright then."

"Alright then!"

"Good luck."

"Thank you!"

"If you need anything, or if you get in any danger, call me."

Botan hoisted her bag over her shoulder, gave Captain Ootake one last glare and then spun on her heels and stomped off, starting for the portal to the living world. A glance at the clock told her she was running late for her meeting with Hiei, but she was sure that he would be sympathetic when she told him what she had just had to endure; though she would miss out the part about how she had behaved at Koenma's birthday party.

* * *

**Next Chapter:** After Botan informs Hiei that she couldn't dig up on dirt on Inukasai in spirit world, she convinces Hiei to go to the village of the dog demons and to take her with him. There are pretty flowers, butterflies and a cosy cave, and through it all Hiei and Botan talk about the thing Hiei thinks of when he thinks of Botan. **Chapter 5 – Romantic Obsession**


	5. Romantic Obsession

**Chapter 5 – Romantic Obsession**

Hiei paced back and forth angrily, ignoring the fact that he had walked a furrow into the sand by the river's edge. By his estimations, the ferry girl was at least an hour late, and he was furious. After hearing Inukasai out him as an emiko to Yukina, he needed immediate closure on the matter, and the only way to get that was to get the information the ferry girl had promised to deliver and present it to Yukina, proving that Inukasai was not her brother. He started to curse himself for trusting the idiot ferry girl to arrive on time. He himself had arrived around fifty minutes late, and he had expected to find her there waiting for him: and so the last ten minutes of waiting for her had been torture.

Hiei stopped short, his anger momentarily surpassed by bemusement as he noticed a woman dressed as a wood elf walking towards him with a large bag on her back in place of a quiver of arrows. She was walking towards him with a sense of purpose, though her stride was a little perky for that of a stealth warrior. As she drew nearer, Hiei realised that he was in fact looking at the ferry girl, and he remembered then that she always had possessed a penchant for expressing herself through inappropriate fashion choices. He had witnessed her donning all manners of weird ensembles and claiming that she was dressing for the occasion, but, just as he had never understood any of her previous wardrobe choices, he failed to understand why she thought that delivering him information from spirit world required her to dress in a thin, suede leather, light brown sleeveless tunic with matching, pointy-toed ankle boots and the most figure-hugging and slightly revealing pair of cream coloured tights he had ever seen on any creature from any of the three worlds.

"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded as she leapt down the embankment to join him.

"I have some bad news, I'm afraid," she replied.

"Wrong answer," he warned her.

"There isn't any information on boys born into the ice village in the spirit world files," she continued, seemingly oblivious to his ire. "So I couldn't confirm who Inukasai's mother was or when he was born. But I do have a plan for what we should do next."

Hiei growled and bared his teeth at her, but still she remained unperturbed. Without the information she had promised to deliver to him, he thought it was quite obvious what should be done next: he would have to return to demon world, gather the strongest border patrol guard officers he could find, and then he would storm the village of the dog demons, slaying a few of the residents to send a message, and taking Inukasai back to Mukuro to prove his own innocence to her.

"Let's go to the village of the dog demons."

"What?"

Hiei's sneer vanished. The ferry girl appeared to be serious.

"Let's go to the village of the dog demons, the place Inukasai came from," she said. "Do you know how to find it?"

"There's no reason for you to go there," Hiei answered cagily.

"We need to go there to get the dirt on Inukasai," the ferry girl replied, smacking the side of one fist into her open palm. "We'll be able to find out how old he is – because his father has raised him since his birth – and we may even be able to convince his father to tell us the real identity of his mother. Then we can tell Yukina that Inukasai's mother is not Hina."

"I'm not taking you to Inugoya with me, woman," Hiei growled. "That's an absurd idea. I'd rather cut off my own–"

"And once we know exactly how old he is, we'll be able to prove he isn't Yukina's brother because he's far too old to be her brother."

"…Wait, what?"

"Inukasai is clearly too old to be Yukina's twin. He must be at least thirty years older than you, Hiei."

Hiei blinked owlishly.

"What the…" he began, trying to ignore how bizarre it was that Yusuke and even Kurama did not think he looked as young as Yukina or any younger than Inukasai, but the ferry girl did without hesitation. "How do you… What… I thought you said that you had no information on Inukasai?"

"I don't," she replied.

"Then what makes you think he's thirty years older than I am?"

"Well, his facial structure suggests that he is older than you. The proportion of his facial features indicate that he's older. I would guess he is probably in his mid-seventies, whereas I would say you must be in your mid-forties."

Hiei swallowed hard.

"You seem to know an awful lot about guessing a demon's age," he commented.

"Am I right?" she asked, looking quite innocent.

"You're close," he replied.

"How close?"

She was grinning as though they were discussing something as trivial as how close she had come to picking the correct numbers for the demon world lottery.

"Too close," he replied.

"You're in your mid-forties?" she pressed. "I was right?"

"Not quite," he replied.

"Oh dear, how wrong was I?"

Hiei bit back his initial response – which had been to tell her the truth, to tell her that she had flattered his ego by guessing that he was slightly younger than he actually was, something that had actually been quite welcome after the others scoffing at how much older than Yukina and Inukasai they both thought he looked – and instead he gave her a less emotional reply.

"Not very."

"So I was absolutely right then. You're forty-five exactly?"

Hiei paused long enough to realise that the look on the ferry girl's face suggested that she would not let the matter drop until she had a definite answer, and so he reluctantly conceded to give her one.

"No. Fifty-three."

"I was so close!"

"Indeed. But you still can't come to Inugoya with me."

"But I have a plan! I want to help you, Hiei!"

"Yes, and you've done a fine job so far: you promised me a file from spirit world, and you've come back empty-handed."

"There was no information in the files, Hiei. But if we go to Inugoya, we can find out the truth there."

"I can't take you with me."

Hiei frowned, silently wondering why he had chosen those specific, slightly ambiguous, words to reject the ferry girl. After a brief pause to consider the matter, he tried again.

"I'm not taking you with me, that's a ridiculous idea," he corrected himself.

"Well I'm coming with you and that's that," she replied, folding her arms and turning her nose up in the air as though daring him to argue with her further.

"You'll slow me down and this isn't your problem to fix," he pointed out.

"I'm fast on my oar and it is my duty as your friend to help you fix this," she stubbornly replied. "And I owe you for avenging Inukasai for me after he brutally attacked me."

"He slapped you. That was hardly a brutal attack."

"It hurt brutally. And you rushed to my aid without hesitation, like a true friend, and now I am doing the same for you."

"That's not… I didn't… You're insufferable and impossible!"

"I like you too, Hiei."

Hiei growled and bared his teeth again but again the ferry girl remained unfazed.

"I have some supplies in my bag," she continued, pointing at the enormous, heavily-packed bag on her back. "I'm ready to go right now."

"I need to sleep before I go to the village!" Hiei said, barely noticing how ridiculous his answer sounded when said out loud.

"Oh, alright," the ferry girl casually replied. "Should we sleep here or is there somewhere in demon world we could sleep together?"

She was the most persistent pest Hiei had ever encountered; which was really quite a feat, as he had encountered many pests in his lifetime, and some of them really quite persistent. But, as her face started to turn red and her eyes grew larger, he forgot all about how annoying she was and began to wonder what was wrong with her.

"Not that we will be sleeping together, per se," she said hurriedly. "Because I'm not allowed to do that. Captain Ootake was very specific that I shouldn't do that. Not even with you, Hiei."

"…What?" Hiei grunted.

"I just meant that we should find a location where we can both get some rest," she prattled on. "Somewhere where we can sleep, in the same approximate vicinity as each other, for the sake of convenience, not that we should share a bed and sleep together, as it were."

The realisation dawned on Hiei then that she had in fact said the words "we could sleep together", and he briefly allowed himself to linger on how offensive he found her awkwardness and how desperate she was to correct herself lest he take her offer seriously. As the colour started to fade from her face and she started to avoid making eye contact with him, he recovered and refocused his attention on the matter at hand.

"You can't come to Inugoya – or even just to demon world – with me," he said. "I don't need Koenma complaining that I stole away one of his servants."

"Koenma won't mind me coming with you," she replied.

Hiei made to tell her that she had possibly just set a new record for saying ridiculous things, but he stopped as he remembered all the things Inukasai had been saying about the ferry girl. As much as it pained Hiei to admit that the manipulative liar was right about anything, he had at least been right about one thing: Botan was a loud-mouth who could not be trusted to keep a secret. That she would even say the words "Koenma won't mind" clearly showed that she would go and discuss the matter with Koenma if Hiei gave her even half the chance to. In fact, he thought, if he refused her again, she would probably just go straight back to spirit world and ask Koenma if she could go to demon world with him, so that she could try using the argument that Koenma had granted her permission to join his mission.

As time was a key factor – since Yukina was expecting him to return her hirui stone to her – Hiei came to the reluctant conclusion that there was only two ways to stop Botan from going back to spirit world and telling Koenma what he was up to: he had to either kill her or take her with him. And, as appealing an option as the former was, as a matter of honour Hiei could not kill someone who been the only person to see through Inukasai's lies and to stand by him loyally.

"What's in the bag?" he asked.

"Clothing, a tent, some food rations and money," she replied.

"Where did you get all that?" he asked.

"The SDF locker room and supply closet," she replied.

"Did you take it without permission?"

"Yes."

Hiei felt that she was deceiving him somehow, but letting her go or fighting with her too hard were both risks that he could not afford to take.

"Can you keep up with me even if you are carrying that bag?" he asked.

"Oh Hiei, how considerate of you!"

"I–whuh?"

Hiei grunted as the ferry girl swung her bag off her shoulder and almost threw it at him. He caught it awkwardly in his arms, glaring over the top of it at her.

"You're such a gentleman, Hiei," she said sweetly. "I bet that lying bully Inukasai wouldn't offer to carry a lady's bag!"

Inukasai probably would have offered to carry the lady herself too, Hiei thought darkly, but he chose not to admit as much, instead adjusting the carrying handle of the bag across his chest as she had been carrying it. It hung a little low and would hinder his ability to sprint freely, but he reasoned that would probably be to her advantage, as his slowed pace would make it easier for her to keep up with him.

"Let's go," he said.

She nodded and leapt onto her oar, and together they left for demon world.

* * *

Botan was not really sure what Hiei was doing, but as he looked quite serious and quite absorbed in his mysterious task, she did not dare ask. Ordinarily her curiosity would have bested her after barely a minute of watching him, but, as it was, her mind was already full of other pressing matters that were helping curb her more typical inquisitiveness. Mainly, she was fretting about the fact that Hiei wanted to sleep that night. She was tired, and she knew that sleeping was a wise decision for them both, but she also knew that sleeping meant losing time that could otherwise be spent going to the village of the dog demon tribe – apparently called Inugoya – and finding the answers they needed.

It was imperative that they found the information they needed as quickly as possible; after all, if they met with any delays or had difficulty finding what they sought, it may take longer than a week to resolve the situation, and Koenma had ordered Botan to report back to him in one week's time. She could not take longer than a week to drive out Inukasai because if she did, she would have to make the difficult decision between confronting Koenma and telling him that she could not do what he had asked of her and spy on Hiei's misery, or she would have to remain in demon world until the matter was resolved and she could safely return, and hope that Koenma did not send anyone after her in the mean time. She was also hoping that she would not be forced to enact either option, as both would lead to her being severely punished and demoted to ferry girl indefinitely: that dream of getting a seat on the spirit world council would never be realised if she showed herself to be a rebel who disobeyed orders by putting her own personal feelings ahead of the interests of spirit world as a whole.

It was a stupid idea anyway, she thought bitterly. Koenma had no need to conduct such an experiment: Hiei's life alone was proof that there was no legitimate debate on nature versus nurture. Hiei had been born with a terrible nature, he had been nurtured to adulthood by the worst of demon world, and yet he had turned into a perfectly decent guy. By Koenma's logic, Hiei ought to be pure evil: either because he had been born evil (nature) or because he had been raised in a bad environment (nurture), but he was anything but. On the other hand, Inukasai had been born evil (nature), had seemingly been raised well (nurture), and yet he had turned into a vile excuse for a man. He was not even the creature he had been born as – a bloodthirsty killing machine, as the legend went – rather he was a devious and manipulative cad, something he must have learned despite his more comfortable life.

Botan wondered if she ought to write that in her report: both Hiei and Inukasai were born the same way, but both changed their ways and both did so in spite of their upbringing, therefore the nature versus nurture argument is null and void.

Botan started to think that maybe she was on to something, maybe she had come across the ideal solution, maybe if she did write a report on her findings she could still get that position on the spirit world council: but then she realised that she was smiling smugly and Hiei was sneering at her.

"Is everything alright?" she asked him.

"Don't you dare say it," he growled back. "You say even one word about it, and I will kill you."

Botan froze, remembering then that, of course, Hiei could read her mind. She had no idea how long he had been watching her, how long he had been studying her thoughts: she hoped not long enough that he knew about the "mission" Koenma had set for her or how much trouble would arise when she failed to complete it.

"Through here," he said, pointing at a gap in the hanging vines he had been so painstakingly unwinding. "And don't say anything."

Botan wondered where he was sending her. She wondered why he was not just killing her with his bare hands.

"Not a word," he hissed as she edged closer to the gap.

She gave him one last wary look before ducking her head down and peering through the vines at what lay beyond.

"Gracious, it's so–"

Botan's stopped abruptly as Hiei's sword appeared across her throat, the blade so close to her skin that she could almost feel it slicing into her and she was too afraid to even swallow for fear that even the slightes of movements would bring her into contact with the lethally sharp metal.

"Get through there, say nothing," Hiei told her.

She moved her eyes to him expectantly, and with a grunt he removed his weapon. She stepped through the gap in the vines and took a few steps into the land beyond before stopping to look about herself in slack-jawed awe. Behind her she heard Hiei following and hauling her bag through. A glance back at him showed that he was knitting the vines back together behind them, and she realised then that the plants covered a small, round opening in a rocky embankment, and that Hiei must have known where and how to find it, and he was now covering their tracks.

"Where are we?" she asked as he carefully realigned the vines.

"It's not pretty," he growled, his eyes never leaving his task.

"What is this place? Is this the mountain village?"

"It's not scenic either."

"I don't remember us climbing the mountain. Didn't you say we were going to find a place to sleep first? Is this where you usually sleep? Is this where you live in demon world? I never pictured your home looking like this…"

"It is not romantic, don't you dare call it that!"

Botan turned to look directly at Hiei as he halted his task to look directly at her.

"It's just a passageway!" he snapped.

"Well I can see that!" she snapped back. "But, now that you mention it, it is very pretty and scenic and it does create quite a romantic atmosphere."

Hiei growled and turned back to his work and Botan turned back to the view ahead of her. She was standing inside a small cave, but beyond the mouth of the cave was a long, wide road, stretching as far as the eye could see, and it was easily more beautiful and colourful than anything Botan had ever seen in spirit world and possibly even the living world. Either side of the road was edged with white wooden fencing, behind which were lines of large trees that had grown up and over the road, the branches hanging over under the weight of the flowers blooming from them, forming an aromatic archway.

"Are those wisterias?" she asked as Hiei finally finished his task and moved to stand alongside her.

"How the hell should I know?" he grumpily responded. "I'm not Kurama."

"You don't have to be a plant expert to be able to identify a plant, Hiei," Botan pointed out.

"I disagree," Hiei said, starting to walk on, dragging Botan's bag along the ground behind him as he went.

"Well you shouldn't disagree because I'm right!" Botan said, hurrying after him. "I'm not a plant expert, and I knew those lovely hanging purple flowers were from the wisteri–ah!"

Botan screamed and dropped into a crouch, hugging her arms over her head. She waited until she was sure that she was not about to be attacked before daring to lower her arms and look up, where she found Hiei standing a few paces ahead of her, grinning wickedly back over his shoulder at her.

"I maybe can't identify what species a plant is, but I can at least tell the difference between a plant from the human world and a plant from the demon world," he said.

Botan slowly looked up at the delicate flowers dangling overhead, realising then that every one of the perhaps millions of flowerheads had a tiny set of jaws encasing a pale lilac tongue.

"They do bite and they are hungry. Try not to get yourself killed."

Botan gasped but Hiei's grin merely widened before he turned and walked on. She tried to stand to follow him, but again the flowers dived at her head and she fell onto all fours in her panic to escape them. She looked forward at Hiei, who was sauntering down the middle of the road, carelessly dragging her bag behind him as he went.

"Why aren't the flowers attacking you too, Hiei?" she called after him.

"Because I don't smell like something they would eat," Hiei casually replied, without so much as a backward glance.

"Are you telling me that I smell like compost or manure?" Botan yelled.

When Hiei did not answer her she tried to stand again, fell over in fear as the flowers charged at her again, crawled frantically for several yards before finally summoning her oar and lying on top of it, facedown, and then raising herself just high enough to avoid colliding with any bumps in the road before zooming after Hiei. Once she had reached him she heard him make a small noise of surprise and she distinctly saw him look down at her with wide, curious eyes – a look she rarely saw on his face – as though he was secretly surprised at her ingenuity.

"You might have warned me about the flowers, Hiei," she said. "It's not funny, you know."

"There are things like this all over demon world," he replied. "I took us this way to demonstrate the point that not everything here is how it appears."

"Oh, I see… Like Inukasai?"

"…How so?"

"Well, these flowers seem all nice and likeable, but really they're evil and ugly?"

"Hn."

"Where are we going now?"

"There are more caves at the end of this road. We'll spend the night in one of them."

"Ah."

Botan peered up wearily at the delicately pretty – if viciously ugly – flowers overhead.

"Why are we sleeping here?" she asked.

"Would you choose to wrestle with vines to find the opening to a road lined with trees that sprout venomous flowers?" Hiei asked.

"The flowers are venomous?" Botan wailed.

"Exactly," Hiei calmly continued. "So nobody will approach from the way we have come, and as this road is all that lies beyond the caves, it's unlikely anyone will approach from the other direction either. Nothing can approach from overhead because of the flowers. We should be safe."

"Oh… Yes, well, I suppose that was very clever of you to think of all of that…"

"I don't normally need to take such precautions, but I can't afford to have Koenma on my back if something happens to you."

"I understand."

"Normally I would just sleep in a tree, or return to my quarters in Mukuro's headquarters."

Botan gasped, a solution to both her and Hiei's problems suddenly occurring to her.

"We could ask Mukuro for help!" she declared.

She thought it vaguely odd that Hiei did little more than sneer at her words, but she continued regardless.

"Yes, of course! Why didn't I think of it before! Mukuro runs the border patrol, and Inukasai said he had to battle against a patrol unit to gain passage to the living world, so he must have come to blows with some of Mukuro's men! We can just ask her to help us! She'll know who it was that he battled, and she'll know when and where it was, and she can tell Yukina how brutally he fought against the guard officers and what a nasty man he really is!"

When Hiei still did nothing more than sneer, Botan began to grow suspicious.

"I think it should be you who asks her to help us, not me, Hiei," she added. "You're her favourite ally, she doesn't even know who I am."

Hiei snorted and muttered something that Botan could not quite make out.

"Hiei?" she pressed.

"You can get out of that ridiculous position now, the flowers can't reach you here," he replied.

Botan looked up and saw that they were in fact clear of the road, and at the entrance to a network of caves. She raised herself up into the air before adjusting her position and banishing her oar to land on her feet. She then turned to Hiei, finding him looking inexplicably irritated. The look on his face suggested that he was not in the mood for talking, but she had to know why he did not agree that her idea was the most logical one for fixing their current problem.

* * *

"Ally perhaps isn't the right word. Aren't you and Mukuro more than just allies? I mean, I saw your fight against her in the demon world tournament. There was definitely something going on there. She hugged you at the end of the fight. And, unlike those deceptive flowers back there, that was very romantic."

Hiei fought back the urge to both threaten to and actually attempt to kill Botan. The only thing keeping her safe was the fact that she had stood by him in his time of need, but she was continually treading on thin ice, and never more so than with her last remark.

"Let me make something abundantly clear to you, woman," he ground out through tightly clenched teeth. "There is nothing romantic about anything in demon world: not the flowers, not the sunsets, not that moment at the end of my battle against Mukuro and definitely not between Mukuro and me. Do you understand what I am telling you?"

"No."

Hiei closed his eyes and took a deep breath – the way Kurama had taught him to do when he was dangerously close to killing Kuwabara – and tried to centre himself.

"Romance is everywhere," the ferry girl continued. "It's an energy: it can neither be created nor destroyed, it just is."

"Don't you mean love is an energy?" Hiei asked, his eyes still closed to block out the dreamy look he was almost certain she was wearing, given that she was waxing lyrical about her favourite topic.

"Love is an energy, yes," she agreed.

"Right. Love and romance are not the same thing."

"Not always, but they are related."

"Do you know what the single biggest thing I hate the most about you is, Botan?"

The ferry girl did not answer him, and Hiei thought perhaps it was because he had addressed her by her name, something he rarely bothered doing as he rarely thought her worth such attention.

"I hate that you are always looking for romance in everything, and if you cannot find it naturally present, you force it into what you see. I've watched you do it for years with Yusuke and Keiko, with Yukina and Kuwabara and even with Kurama if you think he has a girlfriend: do not think that you can do it to me."

"But Hiei–"

"I do not have a single inclination for romance within me, not a single romantic bone in my body. Do you understand?"

"No."

Hiei opened his eyes sharply, his lips peeling back to expose almost every tooth in his head as he glared over at Botan, who was pouting back at him as though she thought he was the one being unreasonable.

"I know you, Hiei," she said. "I know you don't think I do, but I do. And I know that an honourable, decent, imaginative, secretly caring, protective guy who loves his sister like you do has a great capacity to be very romantic."

"And I know you, Botan," Hiei replied, keeping his tone as controlled as he possibly could. "And I know that you are obsessed with romance. You are literally obsessed with it. Whenever Yusuke fondles Keiko's backside and tells her she's getting "hotter every day" you coo and clasp your hands by your face and act like it's the most glorious thing you've ever witnessed, when in fact it is, at best, mundane, at worst, inglorious. When Kuwabara makes a fool of himself at Yukina's feet you at least agree that it's a ridiculous sight, but you always qualify it by talking about how "romantic" Kuwabara is, as though the sight of him dancing about and calling my sister increasingly ludicrous pet names is anything other than pathetic. You have a problem, and you should address it, deal with it and get over it. You are obsessed with romance."

"Yes I am."

"Yes you are!"

Botan turned away from Hiei and he was glad that she was apparently not going to argue with him any further: after all, the last thing he wanted was to have to attempt to explain to her why his relationship with Mukuro was not "romantic". He watched her mill about the various alcoves of the cave before appearing to settle upon one. She then walked back over towards him and collected her bag, her face ashen and her eyes turned downwards the whole time. She took her bag to the hollow and knelt down beside it, pulling out a few items of clothing and a blanket to make herself a makeshift bed. Once she was done she lay down onto what she had created and turned so that she was lying with her back to Hiei, and lifted the blanket up over her head.

It was so peaceful without the sound of her voice.

Hiei marched over to her side and poked at what he hoped was her shoulder with the toe of his boot.

"Hey, woman," he said. "Why are you ignoring me?"

He waited a few seconds for her to respond and when she did not he poked her again with his foot.

"Don't sulk with me, that's immature behaviour!" he snapped. "Tell me why you've gone quiet, or I won't speak to you again until you do!"

He waited a little longer but still she did not respond.

"I know you're not asleep already!" he warned her.

She sighed and then rolled over onto her back, looking up at him with an uncharacteristic sadness in her face that almost made her look like someone worthy of being taken seriously.

"You're right, Hiei," she said. "I am obsessed with romance. I think it's the most wonderful thing imaginable, and I think about it all the time."

"Well don't sulk with me because of that," Hiei answered her. "It's not my fault you're obsessed with something so intangible."

"Intangible is exactly what romance is for me though," she replied. "That's the problem."

Hiei started to wish he had just left her sulking.

"You're in love with Yusuke," he said.

"No!" she replied with enough indignation for it to seem to be the truth.

"You're in love with Kurama."

"No!"

"Not Kuwabara, surely?"

"Goodness me, no!"

"Koenma?"

"Prince Koenma is a child, Hiei."

"Yes, and you often act like one. Like right now."

"I'm not in love with anyone. I'm just in love with love."

"That's pathetic."

"I know."

Hiei waited for her to expand on her reply, but instead she started to look pitiful.

"Good night, Hiei," she said.

She started to turn away from him again, pulling the blanket up over her head again.

"It's not my fault you're suffering from a delusional attraction to someone incapable of requiting your feelings," he pointed out.

She said nothing and Hiei started to get annoyed again. He made to poke at her with his foot again, but when he remembered how well that had just worked for him, he instead turned away and walked to an alcove overlooking hers – so that he could keep her in his sights lest something happen to her or she had a change of heart and tried to flee back to spirit world – and began making himself comfortable. He removed his cloak and rolled it up into a ball to use as a pillow, lying down on his side facing the pile of clothing and blanket that was obscuring the ferry girl from sight.

"You shouldn't waste your efforts chasing an impossible dream, one that hinges on someone else feeling or doing something they never will," he said.

"I don't want to talk about it any more," a muffled voice answered him.

"Neither do I, it's so ridiculous," he replied.

Hiei drummed his fingers against the cave floor as he waited for her to say something more. When she remained silent he started to turn away so that he would not have to look at her – not that he could really see her anyway – and as he turned he thought he heard something.

"What did you say?" he asked, sitting bolt upright and fixing his eyes onto her.

"Nothing," her muffled voice replied. "Your boot squeaked against some moss on the rocks as you turned over."

"Fine," Hiei grumbled, turning away from her and lying down again. "Just stop talking, I'm trying to get some sleep."

When she said nothing more Hiei growled and closed his eyes. After a few seconds it became clear to him that he was not going to get much sleep that night, and it was all because of that ferry girl who never stopped talking.

* * *

Botan slowly opened her eyes, at first vaguely wondering why she ached all over and appeared to be sleeping in a stone cave; but she very quickly came to her senses when she realised that Hiei was sitting immediately next to her, cross-legged and leaning forwards, his face close to hers and his eyes studying her in a most unusual way.

"Hiei?" she said faintly.

"We need to move," he replied. "The sun is up and the butterflies are out. They come this way to get to the flowers."

Botan gasped, scrambling to free herself from her bedding: the evil flowers would eat the butterflies, and she had to act. Once she was free of her bedding she hurriedly pulled on her ankle boots and darted back towards the opening of the cave overlooking the road lined with archways of purple flowers.

"What are you doing?"

Hiei had asked her the question at the exact same moment that she had wondered it herself. On the road ahead of her, butterflies the size of her forearm with green fangs and purple eyes were battling against the flowers, and there were pools of various coloured liquids splatted all over the road surface – Botan could not be sure if it was blood, venom or saliva – and both the flowers and the butterflies were growling and screeching in a way that actually made her feel sick to listen to.

"This is demon world," she said, turning around to face Hiei. "And things are different here."

"Pack your bag, I'm not doing it for you," he replied.

"Good morning to you too, Hiei!" she sarcastically replied before stomping over to her belongings and stuffing them all back into her bag.

Hiei paced about nearby as she completed her task, and, much to her relief, once she had closed the zip on the bag – after several attempts due to her hasty and untidy packing – he took the bag from her without question or hesitation and carried it onwards. She hurried after him, relieved when he chose to move at a brisk walking pace.

At first Hiei and Botan travelled in silence; but, as they moved deeper and deeper into the cave system and their surroundings became darker and darker and the passageways became narrower and lower, Botan began to wonder exactly where Hiei was leading her. When her stomach growled audibly and she caught Hiei casting her a brief, disapproving glare, she decided to question him on the matter.

"Will we be stopping for breakfast any time soon?" she asked. "I have food rations in my bag that we could share."

"It's best not to linger in here," Hiei replied.

"Because of the butterflies?" Botan asked.

"No, because of the warthogs that live in these caves. They're very violent and they eat creatures like you and me."

"Oh…"

Botan gulped and ducked under a low hanging anomaly in the cave roof.

"We're quite enclosed in here," she said nervously. "If something were to come upon us, there'd be nowhere to run to…"

"I'm not afraid of a dirty cave dweller," Hiei flatly replied.

"Well I might be…" Botan said quietly.

"You're going to have to make a decision very soon."

Botan paused, inadvertently falling a few steps behind Hiei as he continued without breaking pace. When she heard something snapping behind her she hurried after him fearfully. She glanced back and forth between Hiei and the path behind her, silently wondering what was more frightening: encountering a man-eating warthog or Hiei knowing that Koenma had asked her to spy on him and report on his actions and behaviours.

"You can eat your food rations or we can impose upon our hosts for a meal."

Botan turned back to Hiei abruptly, one hand flying up to shield her eyes as they rounded a corner and she was suddenly presented by the blinding light of the sun, still low in the early morning sky. She gladly followed Hiei out of the caves and onto a gravelly ridge, overlooking a wide flat valley, surrounded on three sides by hills. She turned to Hiei to ask him where they were, for although the land was quite barren, it was quite a peaceful, scenic part of demon world, looking much like a wilderness in a warmer, drier part of the living world. But, before she could find the words to ask, she noticed something carved onto a flat rock behind Hiei's head. It was a list of three words next to numbers, with arrows pointing in different directions. The top one read "Inugoya, 3" and pointed towards the highest of the three hill ranges, at the back of the large valley, and as she looked out in the direction the arrow had indicated, she noticed the craggy outline of a small settlement at the summit of the hill.

"Oh I see," she said, turning back to Hiei. "Perhaps we should just eat the rations. I somehow don't think Inukasai's family will be the most welcoming of hosts."

"Hn, isn't being gracious and generous what they're all about?" Hiei replied with a smirk that Botan thought looked more vicious than amused.

He started to walk on and Botan slowly followed, her stomach demanding food again and her mind left wondering if she ought to argue the case with Hiei or just wait until they got to the village, whereupon she could just take back her bag and eat then.

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Hiei and Botan arrive in Inukasai's hometown, and it's even worse than Botan imagined it might be, especially when they discover that Inukasai has arrived back home ahead of them. Somewhere amidst a manic meeting with Inukasai's father (the tribe leader) and an introduction to the rest of Inukasai's (very large) family, Hiei tells a little lie about Botan that forces her into an awkward position. **Chapter 6 – In The Dog House**

**A/N: **A few things of note in the chapter:

Hiei's age is totally a random number. For the sake of this fic, I needed Yukina to be far away from 100, but Hiei to be old enough to have a fair amount of experience at life. I also needed Inukasai to be older than Hiei but also younger than 100 – and there really is no more logic to the numbers than that.

Inukasai means fire dog/dog of fire (have I mentioned that already?).

Inugoya means dog kennel/dog house.

Botan made a specific point in this chapter of remembering one of Ootake's instructions for correct conduct in demon world: watch as she fails to continue that trend in every chapter from here on out…


	6. In the Dog House

**Chapter 6 – In the Dog House**

The first thing Botan noticed about the mountain village of Inugoya was the smell. Long before any of the little huts, the lines of laundry drying in the wind, the well in the village centre or any of the residents themselves were clearly definable to the eye, the scent of the village was clearly offensive to the nose. The smell – which was a largely unpleasant blend of sweat (both fresh and stale), partially cooked and slightly aged meat, beer and just a hint of stagnant water – only intensified as Hiei and Botan got closer to the village of Inugoya, and, as they began to climb up a narrow, winding path to the summit, Botan's eyes began to water from the stench and she wondered how it was that Hiei was so unaffected by it. Her appetite had long left her, and she was glad that she had not eaten breakfast, as she knew that she would only have brought it back up again after climbing a steep hill against the light and heat of the rising sun that caused her to heave in deep breaths, drawing in even more of the aroma until she could taste it and almost feel it in the air around her.

As they passed a sign alerting them that they were entering Inugoya, the home of the dog demon tribe, Botan silently wondered how it was possible that Inukasai had not reeked of the same scent when he had visited Yukina, since a quick check of the tip of her ponytail told her that her own hair had already absorbed some of the odour. She was glad when Hiei stopped walking, as she was dripping with sweat, her legs were shaking from the climb and she was struggling to breathe: both because the physical exertion of the village approach had left her breathless and because she had been trying to hold her breath to avoid inhaling any more of the stench in the air around her. She stopped at Hiei's side and doubled over, grabbing at her knees to support herself as she tried to calm her breathing, watching as droplets of sweat hit the dry ground at her feet.

"Hey Inukasai, who's your friend?"

Botan held her position but did look up, seeing a black haired man with dog ears on top of his head grinning at Hiei. She realised then that not even the dog demons could differentiate between Hiei and Inukasai – which she thought was quite odd, because, although the two emikos were very similar, she had no trouble telling them apart – and she thought that perhaps they could use that fact to their advantage. She straightened up and prepared herself to whisper to Hiei that he ought to continue the charade of being Inukasai and just ask where his father was, as the dog demon before them would then take them to the tribe leader, and they could get straight to the point and find out which ice maiden he had fathered a child with: but what Hiei said next made Botan realise that, in formulating her plan, she must have taken leave of her senses during the exhausting and stinky climb to Inugoya, as Hiei was never the sort to use subterfuge or subtlety.

"I'm not Inukasai, you fat ugly fool. Show me where your leader is and don't bother saying any more, the smell of your breath is arguably worse than the smell of your village."

Botan grinned nervously as the dog demon glanced back and forth between her and Hiei, looking confused and offended.

"We just need to have a word with your leader," she tried.

"Our leader doesn't talk to strangers," the dog demon answered her, before once more turning to Hiei, edging closer to him. "Inukasai? Is this a joke?"

Hiei started to reach for his bandana, and at first Botan thought he was preparing himself to use an attack powered by his jagan eye to slaughter the demon in front of him and possibly flatten most of the village in the process; but when she saw the pained look on Hiei's face she realised that he was probably only removing the bandana to reveal his jagan eye, a feature that clearly differentiated him from Inukasai. As he started to loosen the bandana however, the dog demon stepped closer to Hiei and sniffed at the air, his lips curling back over his fangs.

"Hey, that smell…" he said. "You're not Inukasai!"

Hiei tightened his bandana again and lowered his arms to his sides.

"Take us to your leader," he said.

"Yeah, that's what they all say…" the dog demon grumbled.

"Please Sir, we have something very important we need to discuss with your leader," Botan tried. "We promise we won't be long."

The dog demon stepped closer to Botan, sniffing the air around her, his teeth still bared.

"I've never smelt something like you before," he concluded. "You don't smell like anything from this world. Except maybe the butterflies."

As an image of the ugly fanged creatures from earlier that morning entered Botan's mind her temper flared.

"How dare you accuse me of smelling badly?" she snapped. "Maybe your nose is just too close to your own armpits, because you smell just as bad as the rest of this place, which, by the way, reeks!"

"It's a village of dogs, what did you expect?" Hiei muttered.

"Kurama is a fox demon and he's never smelt anywhere near as bad as this place! Not even after a long fight when he's soaked in blood and sweat! The smell up here is completely unnecessary, what do they do, just urinate and defecate wherever they feel like it? Do they never wash? I see a well for gathering water and there are several streams of fresh water on the hillside, they have no excuse! And what's the deal with the laundry drying on the line over there? Why bother washing your clothes and your linen if you're not going to bother washing your filthy bodies! It's disgusting and illogical!"

Botan had been aware, partway through her rant, that she had perhaps gone too far or gotten a little too personal with her insults, but when she finished her speech and the dog demon before her looked strangely subdued, she thought that perhaps her words had reached him, perhaps he accepted the accusations and intended to consider some of her criticisms.

What happened next quickly vanquished any glimmer of hope she had felt, however.

"Oh dear, I see I've been followed home."

Hiei growled a curse under his breath as Inukasai started towards them. Botan straightened her back and gulped, trying to ignore the fact that she actually felt afraid of him, the memory of his attack against her still so clear in her mind that she could feel the sting in her face just looking at him. He was still dressed the same as Hiei – although he was not wearing his cloak, only a vest – and he was once more wearing a bandana of some sort, despite not needing to do so as Hiei did. He stopped beside the dog demon and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry my friend, I'll take care of this," he said.

"I could rough them up for you, Inukasai," the dog demon offered.

"That won't be necessary," Inukasai replied. "They followed me here after my return from my recent trip to the living world to find my sister. The emiko is a drone for the border patrol."

"Hiei is not a drone, he is an officer and a gentleman!" Botan cried.

She quickly regretted her outburst when Inukasai turned to her with a threatening glare.

"And this one is just a highly-strung messenger from spirit world who likes to cause trouble," he said as he looked at her.

"Is he here to arrest you?" the dog demon asked, pointing at Hiei.

"I care not if he is," Inukasai casually replied. "I knew I was taking a gamble visiting the living world and I am prepared to deal with the consequences."

"I'll tell your father they're here," the dog demon offered.

"Don't bother him with this trivial matter," Inukasai replied.

"Yes do bother him, he's the one we came to see!"

Botan clapped her hands over her mouth as Inukasai rounded on her again at her outburst.

"You really do have a big mouth, lady," he growled at her.

He nodded at his companion, who turned and made his way back into the village.

"So," he said, turning to Hiei. "I assume you have come to apprehend me for intercepting a patrol unit?"

"How do you know I work for the border patrol?" Hiei asked him.

"Mister Kuwabara told me," Inukasai replied. "He told me you were a friend and that you would help clear my name. He said you were someone who had taken an active interest in aiding my sister in her search for her brother, and as such you would be as pleased that she had found success as he was, and you would help me explain myself to the border patrol authorities."

"Kuwabara always did talk nonsense," Hiei flatly replied. "Tell me something else: how did you know I too am an emiko?"

Botan's face twisted involuntarily.

"Hiei, do you really even need to ask that question?" she whispered to him.

"How did you know?" Hiei pressed, keeping his eyes on Inukasai.

"In the same way a dog knows the difference between another dog and a wolf, I know the difference between a fellow emiko and a common fire demon," Inukasai replied. "Even with your falsely implanted jagan eye, you can neither hide what you are nor escape it."

"I don't like the way you talk, mister!" Botan snapped.

Inukasai's head whipped around and he fixed narrowed eyes onto her and again she began quivering fearfully.

"You should just shut-up," Hiei quietly warned her.

"The two of you do make quite the comically mismatched duo," Inukasai commented, glancing back and forth between Hiei and Botan. "I also find it somewhat ironic that my sister became acquainted with an emiko, and that he was helping her search for her missing twin."

"I'm feeling generous today, so I'm going to tell you what needs to happen, and I'm even going to give you the option of how it occurs," Hiei replied. "First of all, there's something we need to discuss with your leader, so you're going to take us to him, and leave us with him until we have the matter sorted. Then I need to bring you to Mukuro, and you can decide how that will happen: either you can come with us willingly, or I will kill you and deliver your corpse to Mukuro."

"I propose an alternative: none of those things are going to happen. You have no business with my father and I will not allow anyone to arrest me for a crime I committed under duress."

"If you didn't want to attack the patrol, why didn't you just report to them and request access to the living world to find Yukina?" Botan asked.

Inukasai gave her a long look that started out as one of disapproval but shortly devolved into one of near pity. He then turned to Hiei, the look of pity remaining.

"One thing I have observed about Yukina is the very strange company she keeps," he said. "Mister Kuwabara and his sister I do not mind so much: one is a very devoted admirer of Yukina and the other almost a mother-figure, and both are dedicated to her best interests. The others, however, are rather odd, at best. The mazoku son of the late King Raizen who moonlights as a human lover of a very plain and consistently irritating human girl–"

"How dare you say that about Keiko!" Botan protested.

"The fox demon who stows his soul inside a human body and pretends to be a perfect human boy, a once legendary bandit relegated to a life of mediocrity and apparently satisfied with it–"

"You don't even know Kurama!" Botan argued.

"An emiko with a fake jagan eye who works on the border patrol, and, despite being heralded as a friend by the group, is highly indifferent to them all and is generally abrasive and unpleasant–"

"Hiei is worth a million of you!"

"And his ferry girl paramour, who has a shrill voice, foul manners and is generally so irritating, it's little wonder she couldn't find a companion within her own world."

"What?"

Botan's eyes were wide and her face pale as she stared at Inukasai. His last remark had left her reeling, but Hiei did not seem at all fazed by the enormity of it.

"You're hardly in a position to judge anyone else, Inukasai," Hiei confidently replied. "You live with a tribe of smelly, flea-ridden dogs, your father is a well-known fool and your biggest accomplishment was to manage a fluke victory over a group of patrol officers you ambushed."

"I know not why you are so unhappy with your life, Hiei," Inukasai replied. "But I do not share you insecurities, least of all now that my family is finally complete. Might I suggest that you too visit the ice village: perhaps if you met your ancestors and gained a better appreciation of where you had come from you could make better decisions about where you want to go in your life."

"Hiei is going to plenty of places much less smellier and much more dignified than you!" Botan said.

Inukasai gave her a withering look as he released a sigh.

"Hiei, you really need to exercise some control over your woman," he said, turning back to Hiei. "I understand that you must have struggled to find a demon woman to be your partner, but if you really must take a ferry girl, could you not at least pick one with a little more self-restraint than this idiot?"

"Leave her out of this," Hiei replied. "She has nothing to do with you."

"On the contrary, she has everything to do with me," Inukasai replied. "She tried to attack me, she threatened to tell Yukina that I am a fraud and she tried to drive me out of the living world. Tell me, was she acting on one of her own poorly thought out impulses, or was she responding to your instruction? It seems to be awfully convenient that she appeared at Mister Kuwabara's house around the same time as you did and that when she attempted to engage me in physical combat you came to her rescue as though you had been spying on us."

"You are a fraud, "Inukasai"!" Botan protested.

"Inukasai is my name, lady," he replied. "You do not need to say it that way, as though you suspect otherwise. My father named me. All the male members of our tribe have named prefixed "Inu", as we are the dog demon tribe. In my case, the name means "fire dog", and I was so named because of my fire powers."

"I don't care if they named you "ugly dog" – which would have been a more accurate description of what you are, inside and out!" Botan snapped back. "You're not a dog demon, so it's all meaningless!"

"It's true that I am not a dog demon," Inukasai calmly replied. "But I was named so because I am my father's son, and he is the leader of this tribe. I carry the genes of a dog demon – through my father – and I expect my unborn child to be born a dog demon too."

Botan opened her mouth to argue further before realising exactly what Inukasai had just said and finding herself stunned into silence.

"They let you procreate?" Hiei sneered.

It was a crude question, bluntly put: but it was the same question Botan had been wondering herself.

"I am married to a young dog demon of this tribe, yes," Inukasai replied. "And she is presently carrying our first child. I didn't tell Yukina about it because I had hoped that she would come here to Inugoya and I would be able to introduce her to my family in person. It is my greatest wish that my sister can be here for the birth of my son."

To Botan's surprise, Hiei smiled – or perhaps rather he grinned, in a slightly wicked way – upon hearing Inukasai's words.

"You took a fellow member of this tribe as your wife?" he said. "How very incestuous of you. Was she your cousin or your half-sister?"

"Contrary to popular belief, the members of the dog demon tribe are not all one big family," Inukasai replied.

"But you are all descended from the tribe leader, one way or another," Hiei replied.

When Inukasai did not respond, Hiei's grin widened.

"And it seems your visit to the ice village was not as educational as you claim," he continued. "If you really did go there to learn about your ancestors and your heritage, I wonder how it is that you didn't learn about exactly what sort of child you can expect your wife to give birth to."

Botan side-stepped closer to Hiei and leaned towards him.

"What do you mean?" she whispered to him. "Will his children be born as emikos too?"

Hiei did not answer her, but she suspected that her guess had been correct, as Inukasai faltered ever to slightly, a hint of concern creeping into his generally confident expression.

"I have no obligation to do so and not even any need to satisfy my own ego so, but regardless, I am going to let you enter the village," he said. "I will take you to my father, and you can see for yourselves that my sister, my mother and the ice village are not topics he readily discusses with anyone – least of all hostile outsiders like yourselves. Once you are done wasting both your and my father's time with that endeavour, I invite you to visit me at my home. Meet my wife – who is a demon, Hiei, not a ferry girl – and see for yourself that the child she carries is in no way emitting the aura of violence and recklessness that I once did."

"I think I'll pass on the second part of that offer," Hiei replied. "I have no desire to waste my time having afternoon tea with your mongrel slut of a wife."

Inukasai made to reach for his sword but Hiei – in a movement too fast for Botan to even see the flash of – caught his wrist just before his fingers reached the hilt of his weapon.

"Just take us to your father," Hiei warned him. "And I'll consider letting you live."

Inukasai growled in a tone so feral that he almost sounded like a dog demon, and he yanked his wrist from Hiei's grasp before spinning on his heels and starting into the village. Hiei nodded at Botan to follow and together they started after him. Botan moved to walk closely at Hiei's side, glancing about herself as she went at the quite impoverished looking dog demons who populated the village.

"You could just kill Inukasai, you know," she whispered to Hiei as they walked. "I wouldn't complain if you did."

"I need him alive," Hiei replied. "And it would be unwise to kill the tribe leader's son in the presence of the entire tribe: they are too great in number to defeat cleanly in the evitable ensuing battle, and whilst I'm sure I would be alright, I couldn't guarantee that you would make it out alive."

"Oh, right, good point…"

Botan returned to looking about herself, unsure if she found it reassuring or odd that none of the dog demons they were passing looked her way; it was as though they did not care that two strangers were walking through their village. The further they walked the more Botan realised that the village actually had about twice as many houses as it had appeared to have from the mountain path, and that each small house seemed to be home to a deceptively large family of dog demons, usually including at least two – and in one case as many as eleven – children. When a slightly larger, slightly more ornate house came into view, surrounded by women and children of all ages, Botan found herself better appreciating two of the things Hiei had said.

The dog demons really were quite numerous, and they really were quite incestuous.

* * *

Hiei did not even bother to try masking his contempt as Inukasai led them towards the tribe leader's house. Hiei had never been to Inugoya before, but he knew enough about the dog demon tribe to know that they were easily the most polygamous and incestuous of all demon families. Any member of the tribe who achieved even a B-class power rating would doubtlessly have multiple spouses and numerous offspring: and that rule applied whether the powerful demon was male or female. A powerful male dog demon attracted multiple wives who bore him multiple children and a powerful female dog demon would intentionally procreate with as many male members of the tribe as she could in the hope that one of them would help her produce a child as strong as she was.

The only thing dirtier than the smell of the dog demons was the low morals of their sexual behaviour.

The leader of the tribe – as the most powerful, the oldest and the most influential – had more wives than Hiei could count. He wondered why the filthy old bastard had chased after an ice maiden; though probably it was only because he had become bored of bedding his own sisters and cousins, Hiei thought with a sneer. Looking around the scores of female dog demons standing around the leader's house, Hiei amused himself by trying to guess which ones were the old man's wives and which ones were his daughters. As he came to the sickening conclusion that many were probably both, Inukasai stepped into the house, leaving the door open for Hiei and Botan to follow.

Hiei grunted at the ferry girl and pointed at the open doorway. She thanked him and smiled – despite still looking very nervous – as though she thought he was being chivalrous by letting her walk ahead of him rather than acting on his need to keep her where he could see her, lest she get herself into trouble. He followed her in, musing to himself as he did so that Inukasai's pathetic tale about how his father had loved his mother was clearly just more lies, as the man had plenty of other wives to help him deal with the loss of the ice maiden he had probably only copulated with once, and even then probably on their first (and only) meeting.

The inside of the house smelled every bit as bad as the outside of the village did, only with the added insult of the odours of damp, urine and general old man smell. The ferry girl was pretending to admire the substandard artwork hanging on the walls, one hand on her face in what she probably thought looked like a thoughtful pose, but was in fact quite clearly her vain attempt to cover her nose and mouth with one hand to block out some of the stench: which was epic, even by demon world standards.

Inukasai finally led them into a large, untidy and dirty room that was probably supposed to be a living room, with a large couch at one end of it, facing the doorway. The tribe leader was sitting in the couch, his obese girth easily filling what was intended to be a multi-person piece of furniture.

"Father, forgive my intrusion," Inukasai said, lowering himself to one knee before the tribe leader. "These outsiders have requested an audience with you. If you do not wish to waste your time with them, I will remove them from here."

The tribe leader moved his squinting little eyes first to Hiei, a vague look of interest appearing on his face before his eyes moved to Botan, and his interest turned to something that made Hiei's stomach churn.

"I will see them," he said, waving a hand at Hiei and Botan, encouraging them to come closer.

Hiei marched forwards, stopping once he was level with Inukasai, who was still down on one knee. Hiei remained standing and shook his head at Botan when she made to bow or kneel down. She reluctantly remained standing at his side, and he turned his attention back to the tribe leader, finding that his beady yellow eyes were still on the ferry girl.

"You need to stop propagating lies, old man," Hiei said sternly, his words proving enough to draw the old man's attention away from the girl. "Obviously you put your fat, filthy hands onto an ice maiden at some point, or else this slick bastard wouldn't be grovelling at your feet at this moment. So tell me: what was the name of the woman who you impregnated with your vile seed?"

The ferry girl muttered something about tact under her breath, but Hiei ignored her, keeping his attention on the tribe leader.

"You look like a child of the ice village to me, son," the leader said, sitting forwards and squinting his already squinty eyes at Hiei.

"Your skills of observation are as keen as ever, and no doubt one of the reasons you are in charge around here," Hiei sarcastically replied. "Now let's cut the plastic pleasantries and get to the point: give me the name of the woman you created this bastard with."

"You are quite an uptight little fellow, aren't you?" the leader replied, a smile growing on his wrinkled face. "And I believe you fancy yourself as rather humorous, too."

Hiei growled and Botan stepped forwards.

"Please Sir, we need to get to the bottom of this," she began. "There has been a misunderstanding–"

"I would like to get to your bottom, Miss," the leader cut her off.

The ferry girl gasped, one hand flying up to cover her mouth – whether as part of her expression of horror or because sharply inhaling the rancid air had made her want to vomit Hiei could not be sure – and she took a wary step back.

"Father, this is Hiei," Inukasai said. "Like me, he too is an emiko, you are correct. And that over there is Botan, a ferry girl of spirit world, and Hiei's partner."

"I see," the leader replied. "And I am Inuyusha, the leader of this tribe. Welcome to our village."

"Your village stinks," Hiei flatly replied.

"Please, be seated," Inuyusha said, holding out a hand towards a long sofa standing perpendicular to the one he was sat on.

"We're not here for a social call," Hiei corrected him.

He made to tell the fat old pervert exactly what he thought of him, but stopped when the sound of the ferry girl's stomach grumbling momentarily filled the room.

"Son, have my chef prepare breakfast and tea for our guests," Inuyusha said to Inukasai.

Inukasai stood up, glared at Hiei, then glared at Botan and then bowed to his father and left the room.

"Please, sit down, make yourselves comfortable," Inuyusha insisted, again indicating the sofa with an outstretched hand.

The ferry girl picked her way through an amalgam of broken wooden toys to the sofa, hesitating in front of it as though she was afraid to touch it. After her initial, brief hesitation, she bent over and began swiping a hand at the surface of the sofa as though dusting something from it. When Hiei noticed the appreciative way Inuyusha was watching her rear end, he quickly put an end to her pointless actions.

"Just sit down," he sternly said to her, walking over to her and pointing at the sofa.

She pulled a face that almost made her look like she might start crying hysterically, but she did do as he asked, sitting by the armrest nearest Inuyusha. Hiei sat down awkwardly at her side, her enormous bag still strapped to his back forcing him to sit near the edge and leaning forwards slightly.

"So Hiei," Inuyusha began. "Does your mother know you're romancing a ferry girl?"

"I'm not romancing her!" Hiei snapped irritably.

When Inukasai returned to the room with a tall, leggy and surprisingly attractive (if also heavily pregnant) dog demon at his side, Hiei qualified his response.

"She's my wife."

* * *

Botan froze, every part of her becoming so numb that she was no longer even able to smell the repulsive stench of damp, sweat, alcohol and rotting vegetable matter that permeated the air of Inuyusha's house.

"Your wife?"

Inukasai sounded almost a fraction as shocked as Botan felt: which was very shocked.

"Not that it's any of your concern, but yes, the ferry girl is my wife."

Botan slowly moved her eyes past Inukasai – who was standing at the other end of the room looking horrified – and his pregnant wife – who was standing at his side looking vacant – to Hiei, who was sitting at her side in what ought to be a very uncomfortable position, thanks to her bag hindering his comfort, looking quite pleased with himself.

"Well that explains a lot," Inukasai muttered. "A lot."

"Isn't this nice?" Inuyusha said. "It's like a family reunion!"

"How can you call this a family reunion?"

Botan turned abruptly to Hiei, finding that he looked as surprised as she felt that they had both said exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.

"I'm here with my son and my daughter-in-law," Inuyusha replied, apparently thinking that Botan and Hiei's question had been literal. "And Hiei is from the ice village, so surely he is a cousin of my son, which makes him my nephew really, and he's brought his lovely wife."

"We are not cousins, father," Inukasai said darkly.

"Hn, it seems we've finally found one thing we can agree upon," Hiei said.

"The ice maidens are very like us dog demons," Inuyusha began.

"No they are not," Hiei and Inukasai said in unison, before glaring at each other.

"Just like us, they only breed with their own," Inuyusha continued.

"That's not true!" Botan protested. "The ice maidens self-conceive! They become pregnant automatically! They don't breed with each other, like you do!"

There was a brief silence, during which the idea occurred to Botan that she ought not to have pointed out the blatant interbreeding that appeared to be a cultural norm for the dog demon tribe whilst sitting in the house of the tribe leader.

"The ice maidens breeding with each other?" Inuyusha said. "Now there's a delightful thought!"

"Father!" Inukasai yelped.

"Oh, relax, fire boy!" his wife said.

Botan shuffled back until her back collided with the backrest of the sofa, her face twisting as Inukasai's wife began ruffling his hair and jostling with him in the sort of way Kuwabara usually did to Yusuke when they were discussing their respective love interests. When Inukasai cowered over and let his wife rough him up, Botan started to turn to Hiei to ask him if what she was witnessing was in any way normal: but she stopped short when several more dog demons bustled into the room and began joining in slapping Inukasai on the back and messing up his hair.

"This is ridiculous," Hiei muttered.

"I agree," Botan said, nodding her head.

She pressed herself harder back against the sofa backrest as the bodies cramming into the room began to fall over each other. When Inukasai's pregnant wife ended up facedown on the floor, Botan turned to Inuyusha; surely he, as the leader of the group, would call them to order, she thought.

"You are a very precious thing, aren't you Miss Botan?" he said to her.

"I like having fun as much as the next girl, but this is ridiculous!" she retorted. "That carpet is ingrained with filth, at least one of those women is pregnant and you are entertaining guests: this is just blatant bad manners!"

"You know, for a ferry girl who is married to an emiko, you're very uptight," Inuyusha replied.

"I'm not uptight, you're just rude!" Botan yelled, leaping to her feet. "All of you are!"

The room fell silent and the mass of bodies stopped moving, but Botan's anger had beaten out her common sense and she continued.

"I couldn't understand why Inukasai was so pathetic, but now it makes perfect sense: he was raised by you animals! You behave worse than Kuwabara and his friends after a six-pack of beer and front row tickets to a Megallica concert! Anyone raised in this environment would really only have two options: become one of you loutish boors or become a snivelling slime-bag like Inukasai! And he did say you all singled him out because he's not a furry-eared, fang-toothed, smelly dog like the rest of you! He was probably alright before you lot got your hands on him and started bullying him and moulding him into the vile wretch he now is! The only thing worse than seeing what you've turned that emiko into is knowing that he's breeding with one of yours and continuing the trend!"

Botan stopped, her chest heaving, her body shaking and her eyes flashing as she glared around the room at the others. They all looked shocked, but she felt that was how they ought to feel. Their behaviour was shockingly inexcusable, and a part of her wanted to write it all down – every last detail of it – and submit it as a report to Koenma: if he really thought Inukasai was such a flawless example of a soul that had made an unheard of change, everything Botan had just witnessed was a clear explanation of why that appeared to be the case – even though it was not really – and the justification of why Koenma's "experiment" was such a terrible idea.

She could hardly imagine how poor Hiei would have fared being raised by such thoroughly disgusting animals.

"You really do have a big mouth."

Botan's ire started to fade as her eyes moved to the source of the voice addressing her. She had not even recognised the voice as being Inukasai's, as he sounded so different when he was angry. He hauled himself out from under his brethren and rose to his feet, looking at her in a way that oddly reminded her of the way Hiei had looked at Yusuke when the two had fought over the artefacts of darkness.

"You are the one with questionable manners here," he continued. "How dare you come into my home and insult and miscall my family?"

Botan once more forgot common sense and found herself arguing back with him in spite of her mounting apprehension.

"You're a fine one to talk!" she said. "You broke the laws of your own world, attacked a patrol unit, stole your way into the living world, barged your way into Kuwabara's house and filled poor Yukina's head full of lies and propaganda!"

"Propaganda?" Inukasai echoed.

"You fooled everyone there into thinking that you were a decent guy!"

"Hey!" Inukasai's wife protested, standing up at his side. "Are you saying my husband isn't a decent guy?"

"No he most certainly is not!" Botan replied.

"You're annoying and way too argumentative!" Inukasai's wife said, rolling her eyes.

"And you are a bitch!"

The room fell silent again, but Botan was still riding high on the adrenaline of her own emotions.

"She is a bitch!" she continued. "She is a female dog: she is a literal bitch!"

Inukasai's wife started to move towards Botan, who snapped back to her senses and screamed, leaping up onto the sofa. Inukasai held out his arm to halt his wife's progress and then drew out his sword. He took a step forwards but turned abruptly, barely managing to bring his sword around to stop Hiei's attack before Hiei's sword cut his throat. The two emikos paused, their swords pressed together, glaring at each other.

"Kill him, Inukasai!" one of the little dog demon girls shouted.

Botan made a noise of horrified disgust, but she quickly forgot about the little girl as Hiei and Inukasai began duelling with their swords. She barely had enough time to wonder which would prove to be faster before the dog demons all began piling onto Hiei. She tried yelling at them to stop, she summoned her oar and tried hitting them and prying them apart, but eventually she realised that there were simply too many of them and, once more, she forgot her own better judgement and threw herself into the fray.

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Hiei and Botan discuss why they got married and Inukasai has a sympathetic change of heart and arranges for them to meet with his father alone, whereupon they learn the true identity of Inukasai's mother. **Chapter 7 – True Colours**

**A/N: **Calling the leader of the dog demons Inuyusha was too good an opportunity to miss (I did briefly consider just calling him Inuyasha, but was worried it might make this look like a crossover fic). "Yusha" means "stalwart/determined", and so initially it was a coincidence that I came across the word Yusha to suffix the Inu with.


	7. True Colours

**Chapter 7 – True Colours**

Hiei had been in worse prisons, but he had never been in a smellier one. As he sat tucked up in the one corner of his cell still in the shade, trying to avoid the heat of the sun glaring in through the barred window far above his head, he was strangely relieved that he had fallen out with Mukuro, if only because it meant there was no way she could find out that he had ended up being imprisoned by the dog demon tribe.

It was not that he could not have fought them off – because he easily could have – it was simply that Inukasai was too valuable to kill. He needed to let the sneaky sleaze live just long enough for Mukuro to meet him and to make him admit to Yukina that he was not really her brother; after that, he was fair game, and Hiei would gladly slaughter him.

"You better not be crying over there," Hiei grumbled when he heard something that sounded like sniffling behind his head.

"Why did they have to take my bag?" Botan wailed.

By the tone of her voice, it was patently clear that she was crying. She had been deposited into the cell adjacent to Hiei's, and although he could not see her, he could easily hear her.

"What was in the bag?" he asked. "Surely nothing of any value."

"All my disguises, my blanket, my food rations, my tent, my poison-testing strips and my money."

Hiei turned to glare at the piece of wall behind him.

"You made me carry all that crap all this way?" he snapped.

"I needed it!" she cried. "It was to help me blend in here so that I could help you on your mission!"

"What mission?"

"The mission to find out who Inukasai's real mother is so that we can prove to everyone else that he can't be Yukina's brother!"

"Hn."

In his ire, Hiei had almost lost sight of the reason why he had gone to Inugoya in the first place. It would be wise to find out the identity of Inukasai's mother, if only because it appeared that even Inukasai himself thought that Hina was his mother, and finding the real answer was the best way to get him away from Yukina without Hiei having to tell her the truth about his own identity.

"Why did you tell them I was your wife?"

Hiei turned sharply from the wall, silently glad that the ferry girl had not seen his reluctance to even look at the wall she was behind, far less look her in the eye, after her asking the question she just had.

"His wife looked an awful lot like Inuyusha," she added. "I bet she's Inukasai's half-sister. I bet she married Inukasai because he was her most distant relative in the whole village. They all look like Inuyusha was their father."

"Inuyusha is the father of every member of the tribe," Hiei replied, glad that that subject of their conversation had changed.

"Really? That's repugnant!"

"If he's not the father of someone, he's at least their grandfather or uncle. That's what these singular tribes are like in demon world."

"Not really."

"What?"

"Not all singular tribes are like that. The ice maidens aren't like that. I can't believe Inuyusha tried to say that they were!"

"Maybe the ice maiden he bred with was Rui. It had to be one of the women with poor eyesight, at least."

"I know! And someone with no sense of smell, either!"

Hiei smiled and rested his back against the wall again. He was not really sure where he would be or how he would have dealt with Inukasai's invasion into his life had he been alone to endure it all, but having the ferry girl around did at least make the whole ordeal slightly more bearable; if only because she seemed to agree with him on a surprising number of issues.

"Everything you said, right before Inukasai threatened you," he said.

"I know, I have a big mouth and it's my fault we're in this mess," she replied.

"I wasn't going to say that," Hiei corrected her. "I was going to say that I agree with you."

"Oh."

Hiei felt that he had been very generous to admit as much to her. After all, he was an S-class demon and she was a flighty ferry girl.

"It's nice when a husband and wife can agree on things, don't you think?"

Hiei growled, any feeling of contentment he had been enjoying evaporating.

"So why did you tell them I was your wife?" she pressed. "You must have had a reason to tell such a lie."

"Don't concern yourself with it too much," Hiei replied. "I only said it to irritate Inukasai."

"I can't see how it would irritate him," Botan replied. "He hates me. If anything, he probably just feels sorry for you now, being stuck married to me…"

She sounded like she was starting to get tearful again. Hiei was grateful that she had put herself into the situation that she had to defend him in a way nobody else in his life had, and so he decided that he would tell her half of the truth behind why he had said what he had.

"I said it because it seemed like it would irritate him after I saw what his wife looked like," he admitted.

"She's very pretty," the ferry girl commented.

"Maybe so, but you have bigger breasts."

"What?"

Hiei rested his head back against the wall, looking up at the window. Judging by the angle of the sun and based on the time of day he had been thrown into the cell, the sun would eventually shine directly into the window, and the heat in the cell would be unbearable and unavoidable. He, as a fire demon, could handle it, but it would probably kill the ferry girl.

"Is that all I am to you, Hiei?" she yelled. "Just a pair of breasts? That better not be the only reason you married me!"

Hiei leaned his head forward, frowning as he considered what he had just heard.

"What else attracted you to me?"

Hiei bared his teeth and clenched his fists in frustration: maybe he was not so glad to have the ferry girl with him after all.

"We're not really married!" he snapped. "You do know that, right? Just because I said we were, doesn't mean that we are! That's not how it works here in demon world!"

"Yes, but you've told Inukasai that we are married, and unless you want to tell him that you are as big a liar about your loved ones as he is, you will have to maintain the lie. Credibly."

She had almost sounded as though she was issuing a threat.

"What are you implying?" he growled, glaring over his shoulder at the piece of wall he knew she was immediately on the other side of.

"We need to get our cover story straight," she replied. "In case he asks any questions. If we don't agree on the details, we might slip up and he'll know you've been lying."

"I don't care if he knows I'm a liar! Lying isn't so taboo here in demon world! In fact, it's common practise!"

"If he finds out you pretended to have a wife just because you were jealous of his pretty wife, he'll think you're pretty pathetic."

Hiei turned from the wall again, inwardly cursing Botan for somehow being able to understand everything that went on inside his head. How had she known that he resented Inukasai for his comfortable life, his devoted father and sexy young wife?

"Obviously we met through Yusuke, when you stole the shadow sword, and I was working as assistant to the spirit detective."

Hiei frowned, unsure what point the ferry girl was trying to make by stating the obvious.

"It wasn't love at first sight. At least, not for me it wasn't. What do you think Hiei? Was it love at first sight for you?"

Hiei briefly wished that he had let Inukasai kill him.

"What first attracted you to me?"

"Not your voice or your nagging, that's for sure!"

"Well we're not telling people you were drawn to me because of my bra size, Hiei!"

"I wasn't drawn to you because of anything! I only said you were my wife because you were there, they had already assumed that we were together and I didn't want to be–"

Hiei stopped himself abruptly before he said out loud the remainder of that thought: the last thing his already battered ego needed was the ferry girl hearing him admit that he wanted to be better than Inukasai at any costs, including by giving himself a fake wife.

"So what attracted you to me, Hiei?"

"I don't care."

Hiei sighed.

"You know Hiei, you're not really behaving like a very good husband right now," Botan said, her voice almost so quiet that it was as though she had been more thinking aloud than addressing him directly.

"It's not exactly something I've had any practice at or any inclination to be," Hiei moodily replied.

"So this is your first marriage?" the ferry girl asked, sounding almost cheerful about asking such a stupid question.

"Yes."

"Mine too!"

"How surprising."

"Actually, you're my first boyfriend, too."

"And you're my first girlfriend."

When the ferry girl said no more, Hiei started to wonder if he had said something remiss.

"Because you've had lots of girls. You're a serial dater. You've never gone steady with just one girl, so you say you've never had a girlfriend?"

Hiei quickly realised that there was no good way to answer her, and so he remained quiet.

"We really should figure out a cover story though," she pressed. "And I want it to romantic. Like on our first date we went for a walk on a road lined with blooming wisterias."

"We did that last night," Hiei pointed out. "You nearly died. There you go again, injecting romance into a situation that was anything but romantic."

"It's very important to me that our fake marriage is a romantic one, Hiei!"

Hiei sneered at the piece of wall the ferry girl was on the other side of. Why did she care how convincing or idyllic their fake marriage sounded to anyone else?

"This marriage has to be romantic and perfect because it's the only time I'll ever get married and get to have any romance in my life."

Hiei groaned and rolled his eyes.

"An idiot like you who actively pursues romance surely finds plenty of simpering fools to indulge your wishes," he said.

"Oh Hiei, you're so sweet," she replied, causing his sneer to warp into a grimace. "Only a true friend like you would compliment me by telling me I have men queuing up just to take me on a date."

"…I didn't say that…"

"But it's not true. It's really hard for me to find romance in my own life: that's why I'm so obsessed with watching it in other people's lives. It just never happens for me."

"Romance is seriously over-rated."

"Only someone who has enjoyed it would say something so flippant! Do you know how awful it is to never know love?"

Hiei looked over at the illuminated portion of his cell, silently wondering if sitting in it and cooking himself in the heat of the sun would kill him or not. The cell had clearly been designed to torture those inside as the sun heated up the rock walls and ultimately flooded the entire room. It would cause a slow, painful death, brought on by a combination of heat exhaustion, burning and dehydration. It was a form of torture that was slow and painful, but surely no more so than talking to the ferry girl about love and romance.

"How much money did you have in your bag?" he asked.

He was genuinely curious to know the answer and it seemed like a good way to change the subject without having to answer her questions about his love-life or give her advice on her own.

"Seventy-five hiruiseki."

Hiei was on his feet before she had even finished pronouncing the last syllable.

* * *

Botan dragged the backs of her hands over her cheeks to clear away the tears she had cried as she heard Hiei doing something in his cell that sounded like an escape attempt. She did not want him to know that she had been crying, and she was certain she had managed to keep the sounds of her sobs from her voice. She rose to her feet, fanning herself with her hands. The cell she had been forced into had a barred window set high in one wall, and the most glorious sunlight had been shining through it, illuminating one half of her cell. She had chosen to sit in the sun (the window was actually just a barred hole in the wall) as it had been pleasantly warm; but as she moved into the shaded half of her cell she started to think that maybe she had overdone sunning herself as her skin still felt hot. When her cell door clicked open she gladly pushed her way out of it, moving out into the corridor beyond where, unsurprisingly, she found Hiei waiting for her.

"How did you–"

Botan stopped herself, mid-question, as she realised that she was not looking at Hiei.

"What do you want?" she asked instead.

"I don't know about what I do want, but let me tell you something about what I do not want," Inukasai replied as he began unlocking Hiei's cell door. "I do not want trouble in my village and I do not want strife between myself and my dear sister's unusual choice of friends."

Botan narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips in what she hoped was a threatening glare.

"What's the matter with you?" Hiei asked her as he exited his cell. "You look gassy. Keep away from me."

Botan relaxed her expression.

"I've spoken with my father, on your behalf," Inukasai continued, turning to address Hiei. "He is, as always, unwilling to discuss my mother, but he has agreed to discuss with you what he knows about the ice maidens, which may be helpful for you."

"Even if I did need help with something, you are the last person I would accept any form of charity from," Hiei coldly replied. "Take your pity and shove it up–"

"Surely you want to find out about your own mother?"

Botan held her breath, silently wondering what Hiei would say next. She supposed then that perhaps Inukasai really did not know anything about Hiei, maybe he thought Hiei had never been to the ice village and knew nothing about his own past. Anything Hiei said next threatened to expose him in a way she knew he was unwilling to be shown: either he would have to admit that he knew his mother's identity, admit that he had been to the ice village already or he would have to act like he did not care about knowing anything about his mother or his past, which would make him look like an even bigger jerk than Inukasai.

"It's none of your business what Hiei does or doesn't do!" she intercepted.

"You really are incredibly annoying and interfering," Inukasai answered her.

"So are you!" Botan argued.

"Look, I know how it is to be what your husband is," Inukasai tightly replied. "I have been through the crisis of identity, the feeling of not belonging, the hatred and resentment of my mother for not fighting harder to save me from being thrown out of her home and the need for closure. I know why your husband is the way he is because I have been there myself. I was fortunate enough to have a good family who found me after I was cast out and who took good care of me. It would appear that Hiei was not as fortunate as I was. I am only trying to help."

"If you really wanted to help, you never would have come to the living world and poked your big beak into Yukina's life!"

"I am trying to do something good for your husband. As his wife, don't you care about his needs?"

Botan found herself at a rare loss for words. She tried not to look at Hiei, though she could feel him staring at her. She felt that the onus was on her to answer Inukasai somehow, but she had no idea what Hiei would want her to say.

"We'd like to speak to your father," she said slowly.

When she saw Hiei's eyes start to glow she quickly qualified her last remark.

"Alone this time though," she blurted out. "Not with all your family falling over themselves and filling up the room like we're at some sort of house party for teenage boys!"

To her surprise, Inukasai nodded solemnly.

"That is indeed a fair comment," he conceded. "I appreciate that my family can be a tad over-exuberant, particularly so to those unaccustomed to the mannerisms of a dog demon. I will ensure you can have a private meeting with my father."

"Okay…" Botan said, glancing at Hiei. "Well then thank you."

"Just one more thing before I do so," Inukasai said.

Botan sighed.

"I knew it," she grumbled. "You're about to go back on your word, like the cad that you are–"

"You need to keep your mouth shut," Inukasai interrupted her.

Botan gasped.

"Do not act so surprised," Inukasai flatly told her. "This is about Hiei, not you. Keep your mouth shut and let Hiei talk to my father in peace."

"You're treating me like I'm the one who's an interfering know-it-all with a hidden agenda!" Botan snapped.

Inukasai gave her a withering look before turning to Hiei.

"Perhaps you should meet with my father alone," he suggested. "I will take your wife to my house and hold her there until you are done."

"Yes, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Hiei replied, scowling up at Inukasai. "I'm not a fool and I know the way the minds of you dog demons work: I'm not leaving nubile, fertile wife at the mercy of a pack of rabid, uninhibited, randy mongrels. She comes with me."

Botan opened her mouth to comment on Hiei's last remark, but she stopped short when Hiei grabbed her hand in his and glared at Inukasai as though daring him to try to separate them. Botan was a little confused as to exactly why Hiei was insisting that she stay at his side, but as she had no desire to be left alone with Inukasai or any of the other dog demons, she stayed quiet on the matter. Hiei was clutching her hand a little too tightly for comfort and he was not even holding her hand in a normal way: he had simply grabbed his fingers around the back of her hand, compressing all of her fingers – including her thumb – in his clawed grip.

It was the sort of way someone who knew absolutely nothing about how to hold hands with someone else might attempt to hold hands if they were instructed to do so.

"I suppose that is also fair," Inukasai said, his face twitching in a way that implied he thought it was anything but fair. "A ferry girl in demon world is likely to arouse interest amongst the men; though you should know that the minute she opens her mouth, she loses any shred of sex appeal she may have otherwise possessed."

Botan tried to ignore just how insulting Inukasai's last words were. She was almost sure that he did not actually know how badly it hurt her to hear someone tell her just what he had, but she did not trust him enough to be sure, and she refused to let him think that he had gotten to her.

"You're the one who needs to shut your mouth," Hiei growled at Inukasai. "Talk like that about my wife again and you'll wish the worst form of torture I could think of is locking you in a cell that bakes you in the heat of the sun."

Botan turned to Hiei, smiling in spite of herself. Yusuke was so right about Hiei: he was always there to save his friends at exactly the moment that they needed him the most. Just when she had been pushed to the point of wanting to cry, Hiei had rushed in to save her honour.

"Take us to your father, leave us there, and never show your face around me – or my wife – again," Hiei added, giving Inukasai one of his trademark death glares.

"Gladly," Inukasai replied. "I can only hope that you will return the favour and I will never have to see you or your wife around me or any of my family again."

He turned and started to walk away. Hiei followed after him, forcing Botan to join him as he was still gripping her hand in his. She struggled to match her pace to his, but quickly did so to avoid being dragged by her hand in either direction.

"And that includes Yukina and Mister Kuwabara."

Hiei – probably in anger and shock at Inukasai's words, Botan thought – tightened his grip on Botan's hand to the point that she hissed and broke out in a sweat. She glanced down at him and saw him staring at the back of Inukasai's head as though he was plotting ways to murder him; but still he maintained his renewed and painful grip on her hand. She moved her free hand over to his and began trying to pry his fingers apart, something that, logically, she knew she was not nearly strong enough to do. However he appeared to understand what she was doing as he shortly slackened his grip. He cast her a brief, irritated, look and then released her hand completely. After a sigh of relief, Botan slid her hand into his, knitting her fingers through his and then touching her other hand to the back of his hand.

Botan frowned slightly when Hiei stumbled, as though something had tripped him, despite the floor being flat and even. His face took on a strange expression – much like the one he had worn when she had spoken with him by the riverbank in the living world – and he started moving his eyes between their joined hands and Botan's face. Botan thought that perhaps he looked a little nervous and so she offered him a reassuring smile, which made his eyes stop on her face and his expression neutralise. She faltered slightly when he moved his free hand over and pressed it against the back of her hand the same way she was doing with his; it was a little awkward walking alongside someone whilst trying to keep both of her hands on both of his, but she knew that Hiei needed her support right then and so she did not argue.

And, Botan thought, there was something quite pleasant about being with someone who not only wanted to hold hands with her, but also wanted to be seen by other people holding hands with her.

As they crossed the village centre, Botan noticed that this time – unlike upon their arrival in the village that morning – everyone they passed stopped and stared. She supposed they were staring because they had seen her and Hiei being arrested and detained, they were curious as to where they were being taken, if they were being released, what they would do next; but Botan could not suppress the small part of her that felt that everyone was looking because they were surprised to see her holding hands with someone. It was a niggling little insecurity that had plagued Botan for many years, only worsened in her home of spirit world because most of the residents there knew about it and were unsympathetic about it, and since Hiei had declared that she was his wife, she had been forced to confront it all over again.

She hated the fact that she was the romantic obsessive that Hiei accused her of being and yet her own life had always been devoid of anything even remotely romantic, forcing her to indulge her need for romance vicariously through her friends.

Botan began fretting about how the dog demons were judging her, what they must be thinking to see Hiei holding onto her, her panic becoming so irrational that she was actually glad when they once more entered Inuyusha's stinky, dirty, unkempt house.

"Father, I have brought back Hiei and Botan," Inukasai announced as they entered the room his father was still sitting in. "I understand that the way they behaved earlier was unacceptable, but I feel I must ask you to reconsider meeting with them. As Hiei is an emiko, just like me, I know his need for closure, and I implore you to impart unto him anything of value you may know about the ice maidens and their glacial home."

"My son, I cannot have violent troublemakers in my community," Inuyusha solemnly replied. "I have a duty to do what is best for my people, and allowing these two to remain here is not a safe option."

Botan prepared herself to leave, feeling that there was no hope of getting any answers from anyone in Inugoya, and it was probably best to go then before Inuyusha or Inukasai found a reason to send her and Hiei back to the village prison.

"Did you not once make exactly that decision before?" Inukasai said.

Botan hesitated, silently wondering what he meant.

"You took a powerful, violent troublemaker into this community once before, father," he continued. "And, even though nobody else in the village wanted him there, even though everybody else feared him, you welcomed him and you showed us all that he could be a valuable member of this community and a man of honour. You have let me stay here for my entire life, can you not allow one of my kin to stay here just long enough to help him on his own quest? I have been very fortunate to have a family here and to have successfully found out the truth about my mother and my sister: I believe that even Hiei deserves that same opportunity."

"Why would you think such a thing, my son?" Inuyusha asked.

"Because that is what you taught me, father," Inukasai replied. "You taught me that even a violent, angry, uncivilised wretch deserves a second chance."

Inuyusha nodded and Inukasai bowed his head.

"Thank you father," he said.

He turned and nodded at Hiei, eyed Botan over disdainfully and then left the room. Botan watched him go, realising that it had obviously been difficult for him to do what he had, for him to side with Hiei after everything that had happened between them, and yet he had still done it because he believed it was the right thing to do, because he believed in standing by a fellow emiko.

She was torn between thinking it was all just a part of another sneaky plot to ruin Hiei's life and considering that, in her zeal to protect the interests of her own friends, she may have misjudged Inukasai entirely.

"Be seated."

Botan snapped back to attention as Hiei started towards the sofa by Inuyusha and she was dragged along with him, as they were still holding each other's hands. They sat down beside each other, with Botan nearest the armrest and therefore in between Hiei and Inuyusha. She saw the leader of the dog demons look down at their hands for a long moment before moving his eyes to Hiei.

"My experience of the ice maidens is not something I discuss with anyone," he said. "Not even my own son. I cannot even tell you where the ice village is: I swore to my lover that I would never reveal such information."

"Oh my goodness!" Botan gasped.

She felt Hiei glaring at her as though warning her not to interrupt, but after the epiphany she had just had, she could not stop herself.

"You didn't tell Inukasai where the ice village is or which of the ice maidens was his mother because you were keeping your promise to her!" she continued. "You pretended that it hurt too much to talk about it, but truthfully you were just hiding the information because you were bound to by the agreement you made with Inukasai's mother!"

"Your verbose wife is correct, Hiei," Inuyusha said to Hiei. "As an infant, my son was violent and vicious – as you too no doubt were – and cared not about his heritage. It was only as he matured, as he learned to control his temper and as he learned to appreciate the importance of family the same way we all do here in Inugoya that he began to ask questions about his mother. I told him his mother was an ice maiden, but I told him no more. He was persistent, but I refused to divulge the information. I did not want him to know the truth. I did not want him to go back to the ice village. I was sure the ice maidens, when they discovered that they had not successfully killed Inukasai on their first attempt when they threw him off the cliff, would finish him off if he returned there. And if I must tell you anything today Hiei, it is simply that: the ice maidens are not what they seem and are not to be trusted. If you value your life, stay away from them. Be thankful that they cast you out, your life has surely only been the better for it."

"So all that crap your son said about you truly loving his mother and being broken hearted that she didn't escape the glacial village to come and live here with you is just a fabricated lie you fed to your son to appease his need for knowledge?" Hiei asked.

"I loved Inukasai's mother as much as I love any of my other wives."

"Urgh!" Botan muttered involuntarily.

"And I believe that, as far as she was able to, she loved me back," Inuyusha continued, unhindered by Botan's outburst. "When she first realised that she was pregnant with my child she was pleased about it: but she always wanted to birth him in her home, which I respected. She went back there after telling me the news, and we were supposed to meet weekly thereafter, but I never saw her again. She went back there, told the others the truth about her pregnancy, and they convinced her that her son was something evil and that she was dirty for carrying him. My lover was one of but a few ice maidens who was not corrupted by the rot that infests that village, but alas she was not strong enough to overcome them when they took her son from her. I was sure that they would have taken her daughter too, and raised her to be as cold and judgemental as they are; and so I am glad that Yukina is not that way."

Botan's face dropped.

"You-you knew that Inukasai's sister is called Yukina?" she asked. "I mean, before he found her, you knew her name was Yukina?"

"Yes, I did," Inuyusha replied. "I did not tell my son because I did not want him to get his hopes up of finding her and of her being receptive to meeting with him. I am so glad she has grown up to be like her mother. And now that I can see that, I am glad that Inukasai found her. She will be welcome in Inugoya at any time. I look forward to meeting her, in fact. She ought to look just like her mother, after all."

"If you lay a single finger on Yukina, I will kill you," Hiei warned.

Botan turned to him, wondering why he had said what he had, but as her eyes passed over the mess of wooden toys around the floor of the room they were in, she remembered then what Hiei had told her about the breeding habits of the dog demons.

"You dirty, disgusting old man!" she yelled, rounding on Inuyusha again. "How dare you fantasise about your son's sister?"

"She's my son's sister," he replied.

Botan started to relax, assuming that he was about to tell her that she had misunderstood him.

"I am not her father," he continued. "Not that that would stop me anyway, but her mother gave me a wonderful son, I am sure she could do the same for me."

"You're an animal!" Botan roared, her anger flaring again.

"If you so much as look at Yukina in a lustful way, I will burn your entire village to the ground," Hiei added.

"And if Hiei doesn't get to you, Kuwabara certainly will!" Botan pointed out.

"Yes, my son did tell me Yukina has a lover named Kuwabara," Inuyusha said. "But Yukina, as Inukasai's sister, is a part of my family, and as such, she should honour our customs."

"Incest is not a custom that can ever be honourable!" Botan snapped. "You make me sick! Tell us something useful or I will cut off a part of your body that will make sure you never fornicate with another family member again!"

Inuyusha eyed Botan over before moving his eyes to Hiei and smiling in a way that made Botan feel more ill than irate.

"She is a feisty one," he commented. "I bet she's a real hellcat in the bedroom."

Botan gasped in horror.

"You couldn't handle my wife in the bedroom, old man," Hiei flatly replied. "Now do as she asked: tell us something useful or suffer the consequences."

Botan felt her face suddenly hot and she hoped it was just because she had sat in the sun for too long whilst she had been in the prison cell and that it was not an outward expression of just how embarrassing Hiei's words had been to listen to and the fact that she was battling inside her mind to suppress the image of herself in a bedroom with Hiei.

"I have never heard of you before today, Hiei," Inuyusha said. "This may surprise you, but the subject of the emikos is not one the ice maidens readily talk to anyone about. They do not even really talk about it amongst their own ranks other than to tell high-level horror stories about how an emiko is born to young girls in the hope of scaring them out of ever conceiving such a child. My lover mentioned that our child would be an emiko and that others had been born into her village before, and even what the fate of an emiko born to the glacial village always was: but she never told me the names of any known, surviving emikos or the names of the women who had birthed them. The best I can offer is to give you an approximate location of the ice village."

"That won't be necessary," Hiei said.

He released Botan's hands and stood up, looking agitated and vaguely disappointed. Sensing his negativity and the need to gain at least some piece of valuable information before leaving Inugoya empty-handed, Botan spoke up.

"Alright Inuyusha, if you can't tell us anything about Hiei or any of the other emikos, tell us about your own son," she said.

Hiei turned to her, giving her a strange look that suggested he wanted her to stop talking, but she continued regardless: she knew Hiei was too proud to ask for help but she also knew that he desperately needed her help right then.

"Tell us how you knew that Inukasai's sister was named Yukina," she continued.

"My lover told me she would name her daughter Yukina," Inuyusha replied. "She told me that before we even bedded each other. She spoke about how she was close to the age where she would have her own child and that she wanted to name the child Yukina."

Botan slowly turned back to Hiei, finding his eyes on Inuyusha, his expression softened and vaguely concerned.

"What was your lover's name?" Hiei asked quietly.

Botan could not stop the noise of surprise that escaped her throat when Inuyusha answered.

"Her name was Hina."

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Botan worries about getting hit by a bus, Inukasai advises Hiei to get a divorce, Hiei and Botan talk about having children, and Hiei and Botan make plans to travel to their next destination. **Chapter 8 – Parental Anomalies**


	8. Parental Anomalies

**Chapter 8 – Parental Anomalies**

Hiei tried to reason that the ugly old dog demon before him had only said the name Hina because that was the name Inukasai had brought back from his visit to the ice village. The fat mongrel was probably senile, and had taken so many lovers, it was highly likely he could not remember all their names. The ice maiden he had bedded had probably given Hina's name as a cover, too ashamed to reveal her own name to him lest he spread the word that his repulsive body had been the one and only she had found so irresistible that she had forgotten the consequences of doing so and gone ahead and copulated with him.

"A-are you sure about that?" the ferry girl asked.

"Yes, I am," Inuyusha replied. "How could I forget such a lovely name?"

"Well, you are quite old, and more than a tad inbred and eccentric…" the ferry girl brazenly muttered.

"I know her name was Hina and Inukasai confirmed it when he visited the ice village and was told the same thing," Inuyusha replied with more than a hint of irritation in his voice. "If you do not trust this old man to remember correctly, surely you at least trust that the ice maidens know which of their own birthed an emiko? After all, the birth of an emiko is a rare and important incident, and as there were only eight emikos born to the ice village, they could hardly forget the details of so few occurrences."

Hiei stepped closer to Inuyusha, his interest suddenly renewed in the nonsense the old man was spouting.

"Eight?" he said.

"Yes, I noticed that too!" the ferry girl jumped in, moving around in her seat to fully face Inuyusha. "You said there were only eight emikos ever born: how did you know that?"

"When my love and I discussed what our child would be like, she told me then that there had been seven others before," Inuyusha replied.

Hiei really, really wished that the odious, old and odorous dog demon would cease referring to his mother as his lover.

"One of those seven must have been you, Hiei."

Hiei growled and bared his teeth – something he knew was a wasted gesture against a dog demon, who could exercise the threat far more effectively – as his ire rose at once more meeting someone who thought he was older than Inukasai. It was not that he was vain and cared about his physical appearance or how youthful he looked, but it did really bother him that looking good and looking youthful was just yet another thing that Inukasai was better at than he was.

Hiei knew that it was illogical to get angry about such a thing: after all, Inukasai was clearly not as fast, not as strong nor even as skilled a warrior as Hiei was, and that alone – by demon world standards at least – made Hiei more important. Inukasai lived a relatively humble existence in a filthy village of dirty and weak demons with low sexual morals, whilst Hiei was second-in-command to Mukuro, a former king of demon world. Inukasai's wife was relatively weak and only strikingly attractive when compared to the other residents of Inugoya, and she was most likely his half-sister (her father was surely Inuyusha and her mother was probably also one of Inuyusha's daughters).

Still, whether she was the child of her husband's father and her own sister or not, she was still Inukasai's wife, and she was definitely pregnant; Hiei wondered if he ought to mention the oddity of that to Inukasai or just wait until the child was born and let the phony see the problem for himself.

"So there must have been nine emikos born by now," the ferry girl said. "At least."

Inuyusha frowned at her and she appeared to be annoyed by his response.

"Well clearly there is, because Hiei is a lot younger than Inukasai!" she snapped. "Maybe seven were born before Inukasai – who was number eight – but Hiei was born after Inukasai, which makes him number nine. Or ten. Or eleven. Or twelve. Or–"

" We get the point!" Hiei snapped.

The ferry girl stopped, though she gave him a look that implied that she wanted to continue.

"My son is only in his seventy-ninth year," Inuyusha said.

"In that case he's a whole quarter of a century older than Hiei, you blind old fool!" Botan yelled.

She was almost foaming at the mouth: for Hiei it was simultaneously embarrassing to be associated with her and strangely reassuring that someone else felt exactly the same way he did and was unafraid of how foolish she looked openly expressing it.

"My mistake," Inuyusha said to Hiei. "Perhaps you were emiko number nine then."

"Hn, of course I was."

Hiei turned his back on Botan and Inuyusha. Learning that creep was lucky number eight and he was unlucky number nine was almost laughable, and so appropriate it just had to be true. After all, the number eight meant prosperous and the number nine meant suffering. How typical.

"I am sorry I cannott tell you any more," Inuyusha offered.

"Are you sorry because you don't know anything more to tell us, or are you sorry because you feel guilty about all the other information you're hiding from us?" the ferry girl responded.

Hiei looked back over his shoulder to find her up on her knees, her hands supporting her weight against the arm of the sofa and her body leaning over the edge towards Inuyusha. She was glaring at him in a way she often did with Yusuke when she was nagging him about something, and the look might have had some effect were it not for the wood elf outfit she was still wearing, which, in her current position, was affording the pervert old leader of the dog demon tribe an almost dangerously explicit view down her top.

"Let's go, Botan," Hiei said.

"I think he's hiding something, Hiei!" she replied, leaning closer still to Inuyusha, who's eyes had lowered to her chest.

"I mean it, let's go!" Hiei said sternly.

"The least you can do is tell us everything you know!" she said to Inuyusha.

"Well I can see why Hiei married you," Inuyusha replied, smiling lecherously.

"What?" she echoed.

Hiei leapt forwards and grabbed one of Botan's arms, dragging her from the sofa. She yelped and stumbled after him, saying something about him being too rough, but he was sure that his dragging her by her arm was a more agreeable experience than the alternative that would have taken place had he left her thrusting her chest into the face of an old man who had been about to grab at what she appeared to be offering him.

"We're leaving," Hiei told her.

"They still have my bag!" she protested.

Hiei did not especially want to carry a bag full of crap from spirit world anywhere, least of all back down the mountain path, but she had said that the bag contained seventy-five hirui stones, and that was practically enough to buy a village the size of Inugoya, and the bandit in Hiei could not resist the temptation to take it back.

"Give my wife back her bag," he told Inuyusha. "And you better not have taken anything from it."

"It's over there somewhere, please, take it," Inuyusha replied, waving a hand at one corner of the room,

Hiei marched over – inadvertently dragging Botan with him as he had forgotten to let go of her arm – to a pile of linen, releasing Botan once he reached his destination and crouching down to claw through the piles of stained sheets. He quickly uncovered the giant bag, dragging it out from under all the other rubbish – which, he noticed, had accumulated there in a matter of hours – and the first thing he noticed was the clumsy way the bag had been rifled through, the zip not even fully closed again to hide the evidence.

"You went through my things!" Botan cried, glaring across the room at Inuyusha.

Hiei quickly located the velvet drawstring bag full of hiruiseki, sitting down on the floor and emptying the contents onto his thighs. As he quickly counted the stones, returning them to the bag as he did so, the ferry girl knelt down at his side and began checking the contents of her bag, her breathing increasing as she did so. As Hiei reached the seventy-fifth stone and released a sigh of relief, the ferry girl shot to her feet and spun around to face Inuyusha again.

"Where is all my underwear?" she demanded.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Inuyusha replied.

"All my underwear is gone!" she ranted. "I had four bras and several pairs of panties in that bag and now they're all gone! Where are they?"

Inuyusha started to make up a pathetic excuse for why he had taken the girl's underwear that did not involve him being a filthy old pervert, but Hiei could not be bothered to listen to it. He stuffed the sack of money back into the bag and closed it over, securing the bag over his back as he had on his way to Inugoya.

"Forget about it," he said to Botan.

"How can I forget about it?" she cried, turning her irate face to him. "I now don't have a clean change of underwear! What if I get hit by a bus?"

Hiei frowned.

"Then you'll die," he said.

"Yes!" she said. "That's right! I'll die!"

"I don't see how a fresh pair of panties would change that," Hiei said.

"I don't want to die in dirty underwear, Hiei!" she wailed. "When they take my dead body to the hospital and they check to confirm my death, they'll see the sweat stains on my underwear! I can't die that way, Hiei, I can't!"

Hiei tried to give her the most condescending look he possibly could, but the effort was ineffective as she lost none of her vigour.

"Give me back my underwear!" she yelled at Inuyusha.

"You know young lady, I believe you have misunderstood the old saying about not wanting to get hit by a bus," he replied. "The correct sentiment is that you do not wish to be hospitalised – just hospitalised, not killed – whilst wearing mismatching underwear. It matters not if the underwear is not clean."

"Of course you would say that, the last time you put on clean underwear the dinosaurs were still parading around the living world!" Botan replied.

"The point is, your underwear just has to match," Inuyusha insisted. "Now when you were over here pushing yourself at me I could see that you are currently wearing a pink bra with a frilly trim, so we just need to check that your panties are also like that and you should be just fine."

Botan started to yell back at him but her words dissolved into a scream of fear and she almost leapt into Hiei's arms as Inuyusha stood up.

"Stay away from me you dirty old man!" she yelped.

Inuyusha grinned and Hiei felt his stomach churn again.

"You take one step closer to my wife and I'll make you suffer in ways you never imagined possible," Hiei warned him.

Inuyusha sighed and sat back down; though he did not appear at all afraid of Hiei carrying out his threat.

"Good luck on your journey, Hiei," he said instead. "I hope you find the answers you seek."

Hiei sneered at Inuyusha and then turned his attention to Botan.

"Let's go," he said to her.

"Right," she agreed.

Hiei took one last look over at the disgusting disgrace that had somehow managed to seduce an ice maiden before gladly taking his leave.

* * *

As they moved through the village of the dog demons, Botan eyed the lines of airing laundry suspiciously, half-expecting to see one of her bras pinned to one of the lines. Her already generally negative opinion of the dog demons had been thoroughly cemented after Inuyusha's heinous act of taking a ferry girl's underwear. She now fully understood why Inukasai was such a slimy, passive-aggressive creep: growing up in a village of unhygienic, inbred, lecherous beasts had surely made him the way he was.

Maybe this was yet another argument in favour of the nature versus nurture argument Koenma had spoken of, she thought darkly. Maybe she should write a report about it all. She felt that she ought to at least write down what had happened so far, if only because she doubted even she would believe it all afterwards.

As she and Hiei neared the periphery of the village and Inukasai stepped into their path, Botan had to bite back the urge to tell him how much she really hated him and everything about his life.

"Before you go, there is just one thing I would like to say to you, if you would be so kind as to spare me a moment of your time."

Botan and Hiei both stopped walking and Botan folded her arms and glared at Inukasai.

"Make it quick, I've wasted enough of my time in this place," Hiei replied. "And I'll need a few hours to scrub out the stench of this village from my being once I'm gone, so I have to factor that into my plans too."

Inukasai smiled tightly.

"Hiei, I know what you are going through," he said. "I understand your ire, your frustration and your need for answers. I can help you."

"You can't even help yourself!" Botan snapped.

Inukasai gave her a long look. A long, uncomfortable look. She started to feel her anger turn into concern and a hint of apprehension.

"I know that demon world as a whole – not just the ice village – would have you believe that being an emiko makes you something lesser than everyone else in this world," Inukasai said as he finally moved his attention back to Hiei. "But it does not have to be that way. You can be whatever you want to be, you do not have to compromise. I have a life far away from the one the elders of the ice village condemned me to when they cast me out, and you can too. Hiei, I have to be honest with you: I believe that you can be better than you are right now, you are just not trying very hard. For example, look at your wife: she is a mouthy, obnoxious nag, she holds one of the lowest-ranking positions in spirit world and she is an affront to you and everything you could be."

Botan wanted to be offended by Inukasai's cutting words, but she was mostly just distraught by them.

"Send her away – surely she has human souls she ought to be collecting anyway – and let me come with you on your quest," he continued. "I know where the ice village is, and though it is far from here, the two of us, with our speed and endurance, could reach it within a day. Your wife will slow you down and she most definitely will not be welcomed into the ice village – not that I am saying we will be, but at least we are strong enough not to be overcome by the cold – and I know which of the ice maidens will talk and which ones will not. I can help you find your mother, Hiei, but I cannot give you much of my time, not when my wife is so close to giving birth. If it is just you and me it will be fine, but I have neither the time nor the patience to waste dragging your burden of a wife with us."

"You know nothing of my plans or where I am going," Hiei quietly replied. "Take your misplaced pity and direct it somewhere it's truly required: like at your own miserable life."

"I appreciate that you are angry, Hiei, but–"

"And don't ever call my wife a burden again. If you want to know what the definition of the word burden is, stick around here and watch closely to the sort of child your wife gives you."

Hiei grabbed Botan's hand – though she noticed that this time he did at least grab the underside of her hand in a way that was almost the correct way to hold hands with someone – and straightened his back.

"I would kill you, but you will suffer more if I let you continue with this charade you call a life," he said. "Now get out of my way."

Hiei started to walk around Inukasai and Botan was forced to follow him as he was still clutching her hand in his. She stumbled after him, sticking out her tongue at Inukasai as she passed him. She watched him over her shoulder, seeing that he turned on the spot and stood alone at the edge of the village, watching them go with an almost forlorn look on his face. When the path beneath her feet became rocky and uneven, Botan turned her attention forwards again, concentrating on where she was putting her feet.

"How long will it really take us to get to the ice village, Hiei?" she asked as they walked.

When Hiei did not answer her after several moments of stumbling over the uneven path and trying to ignore the sheer drop at her side, Botan glanced at Hiei, finding him watching her from the corner of his eye, looking deeply unimpressed.

"I can fly," she offered. "I'll tie my bag to my oar so you don't have to carry it. I'm much faster when I fly, you know that. I bet we could still make it there within a day."

Botan hoped that they could still make it to the ice village within a day. The sky overhead told her it was evening already and it would soon be dark, marking the end of Saturday. Assuming they set up camp somewhere in the mountains and set out the next morning, they would probably not arrive at the ice village until some time on Monday, and by the time they had rested and then visited the ice maidens, it might be into Tuesday, and that left little time to report back to Yukina and Inukasai that the two could not possibly be related before Botan would be obliged to return to spirit world.

"We're not actually going to the ice village, you idiot," Hiei growled in a low voice.

"You said we were!" Botan replied. "And don't call me an idiot, it's not proper for a husband to speak to his wife that way!"

"We're not actually husband and wife!" Hiei snapped.

"But we're pretending to be, and if you don't maintain the act, Inukasai will see through it!" Botan argued.

"We've left Inugoya, Inukasai isn't around any more, we don't have to pretend anything now!"

"Oh really?"

"Yes really, so stop calling me your husband!"

"If we're not pretending any more why are you still holding my hand?"

Hiei stopped walking so abruptly Botan only realised that he had stopped when she was jarred to a halt as her hand caught on his. She turned around, a few steps further down the path, her left arm outstretched towards Hiei, whose right arm was outstretched towards her, their hands suspended in the air between them, still locked together. Botan purposefully looked down at their hands before looking up at Hiei expectantly, finding him looking at her with that strange look on his face again.

"Are you okay, Hiei?" she asked.

He did not look okay, but he rapidly shook his head, literally shaking his expression off and gaining a look of irritation.

"Inukasai was right about one thing," he said. "Shouldn't you be back in spirit world collecting dead humans for Koenma?"

"I'm not leaving until we fix this mess, Hiei!" she replied.

"There is no fixing this mess, ferry girl."

"Yes there is! Don't you remember why we came here in the first place?"

"Yes, I do. We came here because you failed to bring me any useful information from spirit world."

"That wasn't why! We came here because we need to find proof that Inukasai isn't Hina's son and he isn't Yukina's brother! Those dogs weren't any help, but it seems like we might be able to get proof from the ice village, so let's stop arguing and let's get moving!"

Botan yelped involuntarily as Hiei yanked back on her hand, forcing her to stagger two steps closer to him, her feet barely managing to stop before they stood on his.

"We are not going to the ice village, woman," he said, his voice low as though as he was afraid someone might overhear his words. "I am taking you back to the nearest portal to the living world, and you are going home."

"But Hiei, what about Yukina?" Botan asked. "You can't just let her carry on thinking that faker is her brother! He has to be stopped!"

Hiei sighed and, as he had not argued her point, Botan decided to push her luck a little further.

"We should go to the ice village and see what we can find out about the other emikos born," she said. "Now that we know Inukasai is seventy-eight years old and we know that he was the eighth emiko born, we can use that information to find out which one of the ice maidens is his real mother."

"Inukasai's real mother is most likely dead," Hiei flatly replied.

"But if we can get her name, that's all we need!" Botan insisted. "Just something so that we can prove that Hina was not his mother as he currently thinks!"

Hiei glanced over the edge of the path and Botan briefly worried that he was considering hurling her over the edge in his frustration.

"Inuyusha said the ice maiden he fornicated with was called Hina."

Hiei's eyes were still looking out over the edge of the path and his voice had been barely audible, leaving Botan wondering why he had even said what he had.

"You don't think…?" she asked, unable to actually finish the question, though knowing by the look on Hiei's face that she did not need to.

"I don't know what to think right now," he grumbled. "And you're nagging isn't helping that…"

"But Hiei, you know Hina is your mother," Botan insisted. "That's what they told you when you went to the ice village, wasn't it?"

Hiei slowly met Botan's eyes, the look on his face making her suddenly very afraid.

"How do I know the ice maiden I spoke to didn't think I was Inukasai when I went to the ice village?" he asked.

"Because any idiot can see that you're not!" Botan replied.

"Mukuro couldn't even tell us apart," Hiei said, sounding suddenly sad. "It doesn't matter what an emiko's mother or father look like or what sort of demon his father is, we all end up looking like I do. That's one thing I learned in the ice village. We all look like me. And Inukasai."

"But Inukasai only looks like you on a superficial level! Just because he has the same colouring as you, the same hairstyle and – rather oddly – the same fashion sense, doesn't make him identical to you!"

"No, it doesn't. He turned into someone Yukina is happy to have as her brother."

"That's not what I meant!"

"Hn."

Hiei closed his eyes and smiled.

"You know ferry girl, you're the only person who seems to think Inukasai and I are not identical," he said.

"But you're not!" Botan insisted. "You know you're not!"

Hiei opened his eyes again and again Botan found the look on his face unsettling.

"I obviously can't see what you can," he said quietly.

"Well, trust me, you're not identical!" Botan said.

"Right," Hiei said with a nod of his head. "I'm the same height as the grill and Inukasai can clearly see over the top of it."

"I… I don't know what that means, but Hiei, we have to fight this!"

"Do you have another brilliant plan?"

"Yes, I do!"

"Is it as brilliant as you plan that took us to the fetid village of Inugoya and saw us waste a day in bad company and mostly in a prison cell?"

Botan pouted at Hiei but he remained impassive and so she pressed on.

"We go to the ice village," she began. "And there we–"

"At the speed you move at, it will take us days to get there," Hiei cut her off. "And we won't learn anything new there. You don't know what the ice maidens are like. You're wasting your time and mine."

"It's not a waste of time if we fix this! You said yourself that you learned some things about yourself when you went there, maybe if we talk to different people or ask different questions we can find out something new!"

"I learned three things about myself when I was there."

"Well there you go: three things isn't a lot, surely we can learn more!"

"I learned that all emikos look the same."

"Not exactly the same."

"I learned that I'm a bastard."

"That's not true."

"A literal bastard."

"Well… That is a little harsh, but I suppose it's true…"

"And I learned that I'm infertile."

Botan opened her mouth, though she could not be sure if it was because she had been about to say something or if it was just an expression of her shock at Hiei's last statement. He released her hand and continued down the mountain path, but she remained where she was for some time as she tried to fathom what he had just said. It seemed very odd that such a subject would have been raised when he had visited the ice village and she wondered who had brought it up: Hiei or the ice maidens. She had never thought of Hiei being a father or even wanting to be a father, but maybe part of his anger and insecurities were related to the fact that he could never have his own children.

"Hey, wait a minute!" she said, turning around and summoning her oar. "Hiei!"

She leapt onto her oar and raced after him, slowly as she reached his side, but remaining on her oar.

"How would the ice maidens know that about you?" she asked. "They can't know that about you!"

"It's the one saving grace of the evil emikos: they can't procreate," Hiei flatly replied, keeping his head forward and never breaking stride as he spoke.

"Well that makes even less sense if it doesn't just apply to you!" Botan argued. "If it applies to all emikos, it would apply to Inukasai, but obviously he's not infertile because his wife is pregnant!"

"His wife is pregnant because she rutted with his father," Hiei replied.

"What?" Botan yelped.

"She was impregnated by Inukasai's father," Hiei repeated. "Who is also her father. And her uncle."

"Urgh!"

Botan struggled to stay airborne as she tried to picture the tangled mess that Inukasai's family tree must look like. As the reached the identity of his wife's unborn child, another idea occurred to her.

"But back in the village, you said the child his wife was having would be a burden for him," she pointed out. "I thought you were saying that because you meant that it would be born emiko or part emiko."

"No, that's not what I meant," Hiei replied. "I meant that the baby will be born one hundred percent dog demon, and as the kid matures it will become increasingly apparent that it bears no resemblance to Inukasai."

"I see… Still, there is just one more thing I don't understand."

"There's nothing difficult about it. He's infertile and she's a dirty whore."

"Maybe she deliberately got pregnant by someone else so as not to hurt his feelings by letting him find out that he couldn't father children of his own."

Hiei turned to glare at Botan in a way that made her instinctively swerve away from him, flying over the steep drop rather than the path so that she was both beyond arm (and sword) length from him and in a position that was too dangerous for him to attempt jumping at her.

"You're not helping," he warned her.

"I'm sorry, I only said it because it was the sort of thing I might have done were I in her shoes," Botan explained. "But, when I think about it, when I think about how those dog demons all behaved, you're probably right. But there is still one thing I need to ask you."

"There's only one question you need to ask me, and the answer is yes."

Botan frowned, touching a finger to her chin and eying Hiei curiously.

"I don't think you know the question I was going to ask," she said slowly.

To her amazement, a brief look of panic passed over Hiei's face; though it was only fleeting, and he quickly returned to the tense and irritated scowl he had been wearing since telling her about his fate as an emiko.

"The question I need to ask can't be answered with a yes or a no," Botan added.

"The question you need to ask is if I am taking you back to a portal out of this world, and the answer is yes," Hiei replied.

"The question I need to ask is why did the ice maidens tell you that you were infertile and not Inukasai?" Botan blurted out.

When Hiei gave her an almost admonishing look, she realised that her question had probably sounded odd, and so she attempted to justify it.

"It just seems like a strange thing for the ice maidens to have discussed with you," she said. "Especially if they didn't also discuss it with Inukasai – which they can't have done, or he would have mentioned it being wrong or that he thought he had overcome it because his wife is now pregnant – you know how he loves to brag, if he had been told he couldn't be a father, he's be bragging now that he had managed it anyway. And seeing how much Inukasai likes to talk about his disgusting family, I'm almost certain he would have mentioned to the ice maidens that he had a wife and was starting a family of his own, so surely at that point they would have told him that he couldn't. Why didn't they tell him? They told you. Did they just tell you? Why did they tell you? Was it just a part of the facts they told you or did it come up in conversation somehow? And if it came up in conversation, why didn't it also come up in the conversation Inukasai had with–"

"Botan, shut the hell up!"

Botan yelped and swerved further away from the mountain path, clutching one hand to her oar and the other to her chest. Her action was largely unnecessary as Hiei did not so much as look at her as he barked out his irate response, but he had quickened his pace and she could feel that his demon energy had risen as though he had been about to launch an attack; though perhaps it was just a side effect of his rise in temper, she thought to herself.

He seemed to be suddenly and unreasonably angry.

Botan knew that, given that Hiei was literally stomping down the rocky path, his cloak fluttering at his sides from the waves of demon energy radiating off of him, she really ought to leave well alone and let the matter drop: but her curiosity was at an all-time high, and she had never been able to contain her need for answers. After all, of everything that had happened, of everything that Inukasai had said and done and of everything that Hiei had been through in the past few days, why was talking about his apparent inability to father children the one point he was getting so edgy talking about? Were it Inukasai responding that way, it would make more sense, as he was the one with an illogically pregnant wife. Why did Hiei care that he could not have a family? He had already admitted that he had never been married or had a serious girlfriend, and he had always given Botan the impression that he despised children and harboured no desire to have any of his own.

Then, as if from nowhere, the missing link appeared in Botan's head and left her mouth as soon as it did so, despite her knowing she should not have voiced it the moment she had finished doing so.

"You asked the ice maidens about it."

Hiei's silence and the breif crackle of black flame around his right arm was really all the confirmation Botan needed to know that her assumption was correct. At first she nodded, feeling that she finally had an understanding of the situation: but then she faltered, her eyes growing wide and her lips twitching as she realised that, in fact, she had even less understanding of the situation than before. Knowing that Hiei had asked the ice maidens a question that Inukasai had not explained how he knew something that his fellow emiko did not, but it still did not explain why Hiei would ask such a question and Inukasai would not.

Botan started to wonder how and why Hiei had asked. Had he been trying to father a child and failed? Had he wanted to have children, but feared they would be born the same as he had been, and so had asked to find out how to handle a baby emiko? Why had Inukasai – with his pregnant wife – not asked those sorts of questions?

Botan flew closer to the path again, watching Hiei carefully as she did so. He was still walking briskly, his fists were still clenched at his sides, he was still fired up – almost literally – and his head was still tilted downwards, his eyes mostly obscured beneath his hair, his jaw was still squared as though he was tightly clenching his teeth together and his lips were still formed into a sneer.

"I'm coming with you, Hiei."

Botan waited for Hiei to tell her that she had to leave demon world. She waited for him to tell her that she had misunderstood his plans, that he did not intend to go back to the ice village. She waited for him to call her a name or tell her to leave him alone. It took a few minutes of travelling on before he finally did answer her, and the answer he gave was not one she had expected, given that he was clearly still angry that she had made him mention something he was not at all comfortable talking about.

"At the end of this path we move east, in the opposite direction of the cave we stayed in last night. A mile beyond the divide in the path we will reach a grassy plateau in the hills. It should be a good place for you to set up your stupid tent. We leave at daybreak."

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Hiei and Botan head out for the ice village together, and along the way they find that their conversations always come back to one subject: love and romance. **Chapter 9 – The Long Road Home **


	9. The Long Road Home

**Chapter 9 – The Long Road Home**

As he waited for the mountain hares he had caught to finish roasting over the campfire, Hiei glared across the flames at the ferry girl, caught between the frustration of watching her make a miserable job of erecting her tent and the knowledge that pointing out her errors would be interpreted as an offer of help. She was humming to herself, a smile on her face despite the frown of concentration darkening her eyes, as she tried – for the third time, Hiei noted darkly – to insert the rear support bar into the lower part of the front support bar. She was looking a little worse for wear, which was not a look he had ever noticed on her before, though it was probably a side effect of visiting the filthy dog demon village. Her neat, suede leather ankle boots were scuffed at the toes, her once pristine champagne coloured tights were streaked with dust and she had a black smear down one side of her nose that she was apparently unaware of – a result of her handling the greased metal tent poles and then scratching her nose.

He resented her for her carefree cheerfulness, though he supposed that what they were doing together probably seemed like an adventure for her. For a creature more accustomed to floating about chatting up dead humans, travelling around demon world – with the added bonus of getting to poke her nose into someone else's private life – was a definite upgrade in circumstance. He knew that she was revelling in everything she was finding out about him, and, after only one full day, she was already treading dangerously close to becoming the only being – past or present, dead or alive – to have walked so far down the road of Hiei's life. He knew that she loved prying and getting involved where she was not typically welcome and that she loved trying to fix other people's lives as though her own life was so perfect that she was some sort of authority on the matter.

But Hiei also knew that he was every bit as much to blame for her presence on his journey as she was.

He could have gone alone. It was her fault they had been arrested by the dog demons, it was her fault he was now even considering going back to the ice village and it was her fault that he had been forced to listen to Inukasai's self-righteous oration about his slutty wife and her no doubt web-toed, scale-faced, inbred unborn child. Travelling at the pace and in the manner that would be required to allow the ferry girl to accompany him would make the journey from Inugoya to the ice village last days instead of hours. On his own he could have just sprinted there in about twelve or fourteen hours. With the ferry girl, he would have to run – slowly – probably with the added hindrance of carrying her enormous bag, they would have to stop overnight to let her sleep and they would probably have to stop several times throughout the day so that she could eat, drink and use a toilet. Her presence was turning a journey Hiei already did not want to make into a longer, slower affair, that would just mean more time to consider how ridiculous what he was doing actually was.

And yet still, something twisted within Hiei that he could not explain or understand made him continue to take her with him.

Though since she was with him, and the journey back to his birthplace would be a long one, she be as well make herself useful and provide him with some entertainment, he decided: after all, she had certainly had her fill of entertaining herself at his expense that day, and he so felt justified in doing the same to her.

"Now that Yusuke is no longer the spirit detective, your job must be very boring," he said.

She paused her pointless task and her eyebrows eased out of a frown, her bright pink eyes moving to him, her smile unfaltering.

"Obviously you weren't needed as a ferry girl full time," Hiei added, suspecting that she needed more prompting to understand the point he was driving at. "Koenma would never have allowed you to spend so much time around Yusuke otherwise. And now that spirit world no longer has a spirit detective at all, I wonder how you fill your days."

Her smile widened and he knew why: she mistakenly thought that he was making friendly conversation with her.

"Well actually, I don't have enough work as a ferry girl to keep me busy," she said. "Lord Koenma is considering me for another role in spirit world. It's very exciting."

"And in the mean time, you have a lot of spare time?" Hiei responded.

"Yes, I do," she said, looking a little less chipper. "Which is fortunate, I suppose, because it means I've been able to help you flush out that lying cad Inukasai without the worry of falling behind with my duties in spirit world."

"If you weren't here with me, what would you be doing right now?"

"Oh, I don't know. I like visiting my friends. I try to spend time with Yukina and Keiko and Shizuru – and that usually also means spending time with Kuwabara and sometimes even Kurama – and I try to catch Yusuke when he's in the living world."

"So you would say that, when you're not working, you indulge in your favourite hobby?"

Botan slowly tilted her head to one side, her face starting to change into a worried and vaguely saddened look, which, Hiei felt, was more appropriate for what he was about to make her talk about.

"Spying on people," he continued. "Living vicariously through others. Obsessing over – and, in the case of my sister and Kuwabara – inventing romance where it otherwise does not exist."

"…I don't spy on people…" she said quietly.

"Don't lie to me," Hiei warned her.

"I don't spy on people all the time," she corrected herself. "And it's harmless… I just… I like romance. And I see a lot of it in other people's lives."

"Why doesn't it exist in your own life?"

The ferry girl dropped one of the tent poles she had been holding, her eyes becoming rounded as she looked at him, her face draining of colour as though she was shocked by his question.

"Are-are you asking me about my lovelife, Hiei?" she asked.

"For someone so obsessed with romance, someone who points it out wherever she sees it, someone who sees romance in just about every situation and every remotely amorous relationship, surely your interest in the matter includes actively participating in the sport and not just observing it."

She dropped the other tent pole.

"It's strange though," Hiei continued. "You talk about it all the time, but I never see it. You fawn over Yusuke kissing Keiko, but I never see you fawning over your own love interest. Why is that?"

She dropped her hands into her lap and lowered her head to look down at them as though she thought the answer he was looking for might be there.

"Or is your obsession so strong because it stems from a desire for something you sorely lack in your own life?" Hiei pressed.

"I don't want to talk about it," she mumbled, her voice so low an ordinary human would not have been able to hear her over the crackling of the campfire between them.

"You didn't hesitate to talk to me about my shortcomings as an emiko," he shot back. "You didn't care how humiliating it was for me to have to admit what I did to you. If you insist on continuing to the ice village with me then you and I are effectively entering into a formal alliance, and the very definition of an alliance is that we are allies. Allies don't harbour information from each other."

"This information isn't relevant to what we're doing!" she protested.

She had lifted her head and she was looking directly at him, her face flushed with colour and her eyes flashing with rage: but even through the distortion of the heat haze from the flames between them Hiei could see that her lower lip was quivering.

"None of the information you've learned about my private life is relevant to what we're doing," he pointed out. "We're supposed to be finding out the truth about Inukasai. It's his life we're supposed to be dissecting, not mine."

"Just because some things about your life have come to light, doesn't mean that we have to talk about my life now!" she argued back.

"If you don't tell me, I have other ways of finding answers."

"You can't just read my mind, that's rude!"

"I could just read your mind – it's not like I need your permission to do so – but I don't think I'll do that. If you don't tell me the facts, I'll make up my own."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

Hiei deliberately paused to reposition the mountain hares by the fire, drawing the task out intentionally to give the girl time to stew in the quagmire of her own conflicting emotions. He did not need to answer her, her own inability to keep quiet and need to end the awkwardness of the situation would get the better of her and she would tell him what he wanted to know.

"I don't make up facts about you, Hiei!" she said as he finished his task and wiped his hands off on his pants. "That's not something friends do!"

Hiei nodded.

"Hn."

"No it's not!"

"I didn't say anything."

"You don't understand, it's not like that!"

"I didn't say anything."

"I just wanted our marriage to mean something, Hiei!"

Hiei's balked. Of all the responses he had been expecting to elicit from the ferry girl, the one she had just given had surely been the most unexpected and inexplicable.

"You don't care because it's not important to you and you've had hundreds of girlfriends because it's easy for you!" she ranted, tears welling in her eyes and her voice gaining an edge of hysteria. "But it's never been easy for me, and I just don't understand why! Why can't our marriage be romantic?"

"We're not actually married," Hiei said carefully.

He was starting to wonder if there was some bizarre law in spirit world that meant that merely calling someone your wife was akin to marrying them.

"You realise that I only told Inukasai you were my wife to piss him off, right?" he added.

"Why can't our marriage be romantic, Hiei?" she asked again, her voice getting shrill.

"Because it's fake!" he said sternly.

"The fact that it's fake makes it all the more pathetic that it can't be romantic!"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I never get to have any real romance in my own life, only fake romantic thoughts inside my head, so why can't our fake marriage that only exists inside our heads be romantic if I want it to be?"

Hiei narrowed his eyes and moved forwards onto all fours, leering across the campfire at the now openly sobbing ferry girl.

"Did you eat or drink anything while we were in Inugoya?" he asked.

"No, and I'm so hungry I just want to die!" she wailed.

"Well then eat something, your hunger is making you delirious."

Hiei moved to the roasting hares, drawing out his sword to carve off some of the top layer of meat to feed the girl. He had gone from wanting her to talk to just wanting her to shut-up again, and at least if she crammed her mouth full of food she would stop talking.

"It's not fair!"

Hiei's hand slipped at the sharp tone of the ferry girl's outburst and he narrowly missed amputating his own thumb with his sword.

"Why does romance happen to everyone else except me?" she cried.

"If I had a mirror handy, I could show you why…" Hiei grumbled as he repositioned the tip of his sword against one of the hares.

"Nobody ever finds me attractive!"

"Again, if I had a mirror…"

"I just don't understand! Every girl meets a boy who finds her attractive at least once in her life, why has it never happened for me? Boys don't even look at me, and when they do, they just want to be my friend, and even then, once they start talking to me and they get to know me, they lose interest in me! What's wrong with me? Why am I so repulsive?"

Hiei turned his head from the meal he was trying to cook, straightened his back and craned his neck to peer over the fire at the ferry girl, who had thrown herself onto the ground, facedown. When she did nothing more than quietly sob into the grass, he slowly rose to his feet and carefully walked around the fire to stand by her head.

"Hey," he grunted, poking her shoulder with the tip of his sword. "Stop making such a racquet."

She did not respond, and when he saw that his sword had stabbed a hole into the shoulder of her tunic, he stopped poking at her. He waited for her to move or say something, quickly growing impatient when she did neither. He sighed and threw down his sword and then stepped over the ferry girl, gathering up the tent poles she had abandoned. As she lay whimpering pitifully to herself, he quickly set up her tent. Once he was done he retrieved the fleece blanket from her bag and threw it into the tent.

"Get some rest," he said, pointing into the open tent flap.

"I don't want to," she muttered into the ground.

"Well you're not going to lie out here crying about your pathetic life all night and keeping me awake!" Hiei snapped irritably.

To his surprise, she suddenly sat up onto one hip, looking back over her shoulder at him.

"You're going to sleep out here?" she asked.

"Where else would I sleep?" he asked.

"But I have the tent."

"I'm not–"

Hiei stopped abruptly, a strange feeling washing over him. He tried to swallow it down, but he suddenly found his throat too tight to obey him.

"You can't sleep out here," Botan added. "It might rain. The tent is big enough for both of us."

"We're not actually married!"

Hiei realised his mistake when she got to her feet and turned to face him, her misery suddenly replaced by pompous ire.

"I wasn't suggesting we sleep together, Hiei!" she said. "I was just suggesting that you sleep inside the tent, not inside me!"

"I don't want to do anything inside you!" Hiei yelped.

"Well good, because we're not actually husband and wife, and it wouldn't be appropriate for you to abuse our friendship that way!"

"What are you talking about?"

"You can't just come in there and take advantage of me because I'm feeling vulnerable!"

"That thought never even crossed my mind!"

"Really?"

"Absolutely!"

"Oh."

Hiei growled when the ferry girl appeared to look disappointed.

"Just get some sleep!" he snapped at her.

She sighed.

"We shouldn't argue because of that horrid jerk Inukasai," she said. "I'm not mad at you, Hiei."

Hiei tensed, wondering what sort of trap she was trying to lay for him.

"You're not the only one he said deeply personal and hurtful insults to," she added quietly.

Hiei wanted to tell the ferry girl that she was being unreasonable, but he found himself remembering all the things Inukasai had said to Yukina about Botan and then all the things he had said as they had been leaving the village of the dog demons, and he conceded that perhaps the bastard emiko had been quite critical of the ferry girl, and perhaps even unfairly so.

"Get in the tent," he said quietly. "I'll prepare us some food."

To his relief, she nodded and then did as he asked.

* * *

As Botan sucked the juices from each of her fingers in turn, she became painfully aware of two things: Hiei was sitting staring at her with what was arguably the most unimpressed look she had ever seen him wear and, after eating like a half-starved pig, she felt calm, coherent and totally at a loss to explain why she had behaved the way she had before Hiei had fed her. She slowly drew her index finger out of her mouth and then smiled, hoping to do something about the way Hiei was looking at her, which really was the most unimpressed she had ever seen him look, and, as someone prone to being unimpressed by everyone and everything around him, that really was quite a feat.

"Yum yum, that was lovely!"

Her tone sounded contrived to even her own ears, but she maintained her smile as best she could.

"I was so famished, I could have eaten a whole one of those hares all to myself!"

She still sounded incredibly fake, but the dullness in Hiei's hooded eyes had lifted slightly.

"You did eat a whole hare all to yourself."

Botan peered down at the piles of bones in front of her knees and then looked over at Hiei. She was unsure if he was telling the truth or not, and as he appeared to have eaten the bones of his meal, it was even more difficult for her to figure out.

"I was very hungry," she said faintly.

"Hn."

Botan dragged the back of one hand over her lips, trying not to show how panicked she felt when she noticed the greasy smear her gesture created on her hand. She quickly grabbed a corner of her blanket and lifted it over her mouth and nose, casually dabbing at her face in the hope that her actions looked nonchalant.

"It's funny what hunger can do to a person," she said as casually as she could. "I was so hungry, I think I might have been delirious. I certainly hope I didn't say or do anything silly…"

Hiei was looking at her the same way he had looked at Zeru during the dark tournament – which was actually a huge improvement to how he had been looking at her, though it was still less than ideal.

"It was very chivalrous of you to carry my bag and put up my tent and make me dinner, Hiei," she added, before glancing down at the blanket section she had been wiping over her face.

She gave her mouth one last wipe before dropping the blanket down in the silent hope that she looked a lot more dignified than she felt.

"After you did all those nice things for me, like such a gentleman, I really hope I didn't act bratty at all…" she added.

"Even if you had, by your own evaluation, I would be too much of a gentleman to mention it."

Botan squinted over at Hiei. They were both sitting inside the tent, either side of the open door flap, and the only light to be had was from the dying embers of their campfire outside; as such, the interior of the tent was quite dull, making what would usually be a barely perceptible change in Hiei's expression almost impossible to detect. She thought – or perhaps she just hoped – that his last remark had been a joke. Hiei was not known for making jokes of course, but he did sometimes display a caustic wit that appealed to the darker side of Botan's sensibility, and after the awkwardness of the past hour, she was optimistically hoping to catch a hint of the tell-tale self-serving smirk on his face that indicated he was indeed making light of the situation.

"You should get some rest," he said, his tone quite flat. "We have a long day ahead of us. The ice village is far from here, and the road there is not an easy one."

He lifted himself into a crouch and started shuffling towards the tent door, and in a moment of panicked insensibility, Botan found herself grabbing his arm at the elbow. He stopped, one foot out the door, and turned his head, his eyes looking down at her hand for longer than seemed reasonable before slowly lifting to meet her eyes.

"I'm not a silly little girl who blindly obsesses over romance and indulges in huge bouts of self-pity because she can't find herself a boyfriend."

Botan gulped after the words had left her mouth, wanting desperately to turn and bury herself in her blanket but equally unable to take her eyes from Hiei as she needed to see how he would receive her words and what his expression would be if and when he answered her.

"I know that," he muttered.

"Good," she said, releasing his arm.

She supposed that was as good an answer as she would ever get from Hiei on anything, and so she moved onto all fours and crawled deeper into the tent to commence rearranging her blanket, turning down the corner she had dirtied on her face. Behind her Hiei stepped out of the tent and zipped the door closed behind himself. At the moment that the sound of the zip ceased, Botan heard Hiei's voice – muffled as he was talking outside of the enclosed tent – add one last remark.

"I wouldn't have married you if you were."

Botan turned and fell rather abruptly onto her backside, her eyes wide and staring at Hiei's shadow as he moved about outside of the tent. She wished she was the one with a jagan eye, because she was sure that his last remark had been another example of his acerbic sense of humour, but she was not really sure if he was making the joke at her expense or if he had intended to amuse her with it.

Either way, she thought with a grimace of anxiety, the journey ahead to the ice village was going to be challenging in more ways than one.

* * *

After a difficult night of struggling to sleep on hard ground, trying to block out the infrequent, distant screams and trying to comprehend complex nightmares, Botan finally awoke to a heat that denoted a rising sun, and she blearily set about rolling up her blanket and stuffing it into her bag. She unzipped the tent door and stumbled out, stretching her arms above her head and rising onto her tiptoes as she let out a shamelessly loud yawn. As she closed her mouth, lowered her arms and opened her eyes, she found Hiei sitting on the ground on the other side of the remains of the campfire from the night before, looking up at her with that strange look that kept appearing randomly on his face ever since she had met him by the riverbank back in the living world.

"Good morning, Hiei," she said, her voice as small as she felt.

He said nothing, but he stood up and started to stroll over the ashes of the fire, the strange look still firmly in place on his face and his eyes still locked onto hers.

"H-Hiei?" she said nervously as he continued towards her.

She tensed, expecting him to grab her for a reason she could not explain, remaining that way even after he had walked past her. She looked back over her shoulder, only able to relax when she saw that he was quickly dismantling the tent and packing it away into the bag. She turned back again to look out across the hilltop, at which point she noticed something that made her heart skip a beat.

"Hiei?" she said, turning towards him as he finished cramming the tent into her bag. "Why is the sun so high in the sky?"

"It's almost mid-day," he replied as he zipped the bag shut.

"What?"

"With the morning gone, we won't cover as much distance today as I'd hoped."

"What? Hiei! I had no idea I'd slept so long! Why didn't you wake me?"

Hiei did not answer her and Botan was unsure if she was more annoyed at him for letting her sleep or disappointed in herself for wasting so much time; after all, she did not even feel well-rested, despite having overslept. And Hiei was not the only one who would suffer if their journey was delayed: Botan herself was very aware that every minute that passed took her closer and closer to her Friday deadline, and she simply had to get rid of Inukasai before Friday arrived and before Koenma wondered why she had not done what had been asked of her.

"I'll take the bag on my oar," she offered as Hiei started to pick up her bag.

He paused, his arms holding the strap of the bag just above his head.

"Do you expend more energy keeping your oar airborne if you are carrying a heavier load?" he asked.

"Well yes, of course–"

"Then I'll take the bag."

Hiei dropped the bag across his back and stepped forward to stand at her side.

"We're going this way," he said, pointing out across the tops of the hills. "If we stay up high, we're less likely to encounter anything that might otherwise slow us down. The path is uneven in altitude and direction, but ultimately it leads us to that distant woodland. We'll stop there to eat, then we must reach the other side of the trees before nightfall. Beyond the trees there is a lake with an island in the centre. We'll set up camp there for the night."

"What?" Botan echoed.

She stared down at Hiei, her heartbeat quickening and intensifying. He looked back up at her, his face caught somewhere between that odd look he kept giving her and one of mild irritation.

"What part of what I just said didn't you get?" he asked, sounding more irritated than he looked.

"Set up camp for the night?" she faintly replied.

"Don't worry, as I have already demonstrated, unlike you, I do know how to assemble your tent," he sarcastically replied.

"Not that!" Botan said. "The overnight part! We have to camp out for another night?"

"It's a long road to the ice village."

"But the place we're staying tonight is very close to our destination, right?"

"It's a long road to the ice village."

"Yes, but–"

"It will be even longer if we stand here talking about it."

Botan held back her next argument, realising that Hiei would only argue with her and make the journey longer if she did not just stop talking and start moving. But she could not help but worry about the fact that it was Sunday already, and if they needed to camp out for another night, that meant it would be at least Monday before they reached the ice village, and that meant there was only four days left to get the answers they needed and get rid of Inukasai.

"Will it take as long to come back as it will to go there?" she asked.

Hiei gave her a dark look before stuffing a hand into his pants pocket and producing a peach-coloured fruit the size of a cricket ball.

"Eat your breakfast on the move," he said, holding the fruit out towards her.

"Thank you," she said, accepting his offer.

"Let's go."

When Hiei started running away Botan hurriedly summoned her oar into her free hand and leapt onto it, darting off after him. It took her some time to catch up to him, and when she did, she was barely able to slow her pace as he appeared to move faster once he knew she was level with him. In order that she could keep up with him, he was moving slowly enough that she could still track him with her eyes – though sometimes only barely – and it was only after watching him leapt up several large boulders and over a few chasms that looked too wide to be jumped over that she realised she was hungrily munching her way through the fruit he had given her. She had no idea where he had gotten it from, but it was refreshingly juicy, which was welcome as her skin was still a little hot from sitting in the sunny cell in Inugoya the day before. As she finished her meal she realised that the juices had run all down her arm and, with her flying at great speed into a light breeze, the juice had dried onto her skin and left it tacky to the touch. She momentarily felt disgusted by it, but when she considered that she had not washed and that she had been forced to use nature's toilet since her arrival in demon world, she realised that sticky fruit juice on her arm ought to be the least of her concerns.

And, she thought miserably, even the fact that she was rapidly becoming as dirty and smelly as a member of the dog demon tribe was not even the biggest of her concerns.

The memory of everything she had said and done around the campfire the night before was painfully clear in her mind and she was still amazed that Hiei had not killed her or simply abandoned her for it. In fact, she thought, trying to ignore the fact that thinking about it made her breakfast threaten to come up, he had even made a joke about it as he had closed the tent door between them the night before. Hiei had never been the sort to be patient or understanding of anyone's emotions, least of all Botan's, and so she really was at a loss as to why he was not making her suffer more for having cried and complained about her lovelife – or rather lack thereof – so shamelessly.

Everything she had said had been true, but that only made it worse. Ordinarily, Botan found it hard enough admitting to herself that her romantic obsession stemmed largely from the fact that her own life was lacking any romantic content whatsoever; so why she had admitted it to someone as uninterested and unsympathetic as Hiei was beyond her comprehension. She tried to tell herself that she really had just been delirious from hunger – and apparently exhaustion, as she had slept so long afterwards – but she knew that was really only a small part of the explanation for her actions.

Apparently the journey she had embarked upon with Hiei was going to be an education in her own life as well as his.

And it was not just that she had admitted something pathetic to him in a very pathetic manner, it was that she had admitted what she considered to be both her biggest weakness and her biggest failing. She hated the fact that she had never had a boyfriend. She hated the fact that having a boyfriend was so easy for everyone else and yet so impossible for her. She hated the fact that every girl she knew had been appreciated for being pretty and attractive except her: and she hated the fact even more since her encounter with Inuyusha, who had been the only man she had ever met who had shown more than a passing interest in her. Just like she had told Hiei, her romantic pattern was always the same: boys either rapidly lost any interest they might have shown in her after minutes of talking to her or they simply failed to notice her at all. She did not think that she was ugly, but that only left her wondering if she had something wrong with her that made her see herself as looking like a normal girl, whereas everybody else saw her as something else entirely.

It was not even a subject she could talk to any of her friends about. Keiko would never understand, because Yusuke had been appreciating her good looks since their kindergarten days, and just as Yusuke's interest had never wavered, Keiko had never had a reason to doubt her attractiveness. Shizuru got her share of attention and cared little for it, dismissing anyone brave enough to approach her with a blasé wave of her hand and only giving a boy more than a second look if he came packaged in a form that she liked (which was usually roguishly handsome with a tendency for bad behaviour). Yukina had been raised to have no concept of her own sexuality, and despite that she still had Kuwabara running after her endlessly; Kuwabara of course being yet another boy Botan had been surprised to find had actually considered her to be pretty, but he had quickly tired of her, just like any other boy who had ever shown even a shred of interest. And, any time Botan did try to speak to any of her friends about her concerns, she always got the same responses: pity and platitudes from Keiko, puppy dog eyes of mildly perplexed sympathy from Yukina and jokes and a beer from Shizuru. They were always very kind, always concerned about the fact that she was upset, but they never offered her an honest answer or possible solutions to her problem.

At least Hiei was always brutally honest.

Botan squinted down at Hiei as he sliced the head off a snake without slowing. Maybe his honesty was why she had spoken to him, she thought. Maybe he was the only one of her friends who was honest enough – and fearless enough – to be direct with her. Maybe he was the only one who could help her. Maybe talking to him was not the worst thing she had ever done: maybe she could tell him everything and maybe, just maybe, he – as both her helpful friend and as a man – could give her some genuinely useful and practical hints to help alleviate her issues.

After all, if the journey to the ice village was going to take a few days, it would be nice to have something to talk about that distracted Hiei from his ongoing problem with Inukasai and distracted Botan's conscience from the task she been set by Koenma and from rehashing the details of the rewards he had dangled in front of her should she comply.

* * *

There were a great many things Hiei did not understand about others – even demons often left him perplexed, and so humans and spirits were far beyond his realm of comprehension – but watching the ferry girl meticulously wash her hands and face after she had already finished eating seemed a little backward even by Hiei's standards. She was standing next to a small waterfall, the top of which was barely higher than the top of her head, rinsing her hands and splashing water on her face and even cupping water in her hands to drink it. As he had no idea where the source water came from that fed the waterfall, Hiei himself had stayed away from it, instead gathering water from one of the streams back in the hills. The ferry girl however was far more careless, drinking the water and splashing it all over herself with a kind of blissful ignorance.

Maybe he should have said something to her, but she was already covered in it and had already started drinking it.

Hiei turned his attention to the forest ahead, noting by the angle of the sun in the sky that they had made quite good time – the ferry girl had moved faster than he had expected her to and managed to maintain the speed – and by the end of the following day, they ought to reach the cooler climate of the region around the ice village. He considered telling the ferry girl as much, but he had a vague suspicion that if he told her exactly how long the journey was she was going to try to make conversation with him, and, after her little tantrum the night before, he was not keen to indulge her any further.

Talking to her about the shortcomings in her lovelife truly was the last thing Hiei wanted to even think about, let alone do: it was not even like he was in any sort of position to understand or respond to anything she was talking about.

In fact, Hiei thought bitterly as he turned back to watch her dry off her face onto a towel she had apparently found in her enormous bag, were it not for the fact that she had become useful to him, he would not have let her come so far with him. He felt that, after the nonsense diatribe Inukasai had subjected him to when he had been trying to leave Inuygoya, there was a small chance that the emiko would follow him to the ice village. Until he had undeniable proof that he could present to Yukina that both showed that Inukasai was not her brother and mentioned nothing of her real brother, Hiei needed to keep the ferry girl around, lest he have any more run-ins with Inukasai. He needed the girl there because her presence reminded him not to kill Inukasai – which was something he definitely could not do as long as Yukina thought he was her brother – and, since Inukasai thought that Botan was Hiei's wife, he needed to keep her around to help him maintain the lie.

Once he had managed to successfully expose Inukasai's lies they could go their separate ways, and Hiei was sure that, by that point, which was a few days of travelling away yet, the ferry girl would be as glad as he was to part ways.

"Hiei?"

Hiei looked directly at the ferry girl as she said his name, watching her expectantly. After a brief pause she continued, though he wished she had not when he heard what she had to say.

"Since we are going to be travelling for a couple of days, is there a decent lingerie shop around here?"

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Hiei gives Botan advice on her lovelife, after spying on a conversation in another realm, Hiei imposes a deadline to complete the mission before Friday, Botan frets when Hiei starts to snuggle her, and Hiei is faced with a tough decision. **Chapter 10 – Simple Philosophy**


	10. Simple Philosophy

**A/N:** WHY DOES BOTAN'S OAR ALWAYS END UP BROKEN (SOMETIMES AS A PLOT DEVICE) IN MY FANFICS?

Seriously though. I didn't start out this chapter or this portion of the story expecting it to break and then it totally just did.

* * *

**Chapter 10 – Simple Philosophy**

"Hiei? Since we are going to be travelling for a couple of days, is there a decent lingerie shop around here?"

It was not so much the fact that the ferry girl had asked the question that bothered Hiei, it was more that she had chosen to ask the question after standing by a waterfall, and when she used the word "lingerie" it was difficult for him keep his eyes on hers and not allow them wander to the droplets of water over her chest that were glistening in the light of the evening sun. He really hoped that the ridiculousness of her outfit was her own doing and not spirit world's, as surely even the authorities of spirit world were not so twisted as to send one of their workers to demon world dressed so alluringly.

"Did you notice where Inugoya was located?" he asked.

"At the top of the highest mountain back in those mountains we went to," she replied.

"Yes," Hiei replied. "Do you know where we're going next?"

"The ice village," she said.

Her voice had slowed and her perky smile had wilted slightly, which was a good sign as far as Hiei was concerned because it meant that she was starting to understand the point he was about to make.

"Yes," he said. "We're travelling from one remote village to another. This may surprise you, but there are no fashion boutiques en route."

"But Inuyusha took all my underwear!"

Hiei made a small noise of annoyance. Ordinarily he would have no sympathy for a ferry girl bemoaning her lack of frilly undergarments, but he did especially hate the dog demon tribe at that moment, and it had been quite low of them to take her underwear, especially when they had left the sack of hiruiseki untouched.

"This isn't a vacation," he said. "We can't take a detour for a shopping trip. We would lose time."

"How much time?" she asked, much to his chagrin.

"At least a day."

Arguably it would not be as long as that: the forest they were about to pass through did border a large town that could be visited in a matter of hours, but it was obscured by the trees and she would not see it. It was an inconvenience Hiei could do without.

"We can't waste a whole day," she said, much to his relief. "Unless you could get there and back faster without me?"

"I really hope you're not suggesting I play errand boy by going to the nearest appropriate location and purchasing underwear for you?"

Hiei had deliberately kept his voice low and threatening, posing his words as a question but hoping that the ferry girl would have the good sense to realise that it was a rhetorical one.

"I could write down my sizes for you."

"I'm not setting foot into a shop that sells women's underwear."

"Are clothing sizes the same in demon world as they are in the living world?"

"It doesn't matter, because I am not doing it!"

"Well, I suppose I could just wash what I'm already wearing, but that means not wearing any underwear at all while I wash it and wait for it to dry."

"We're moving towards some hot springs. You can wash there."

"Oh, alright."

Hiei was relieved that Botan accepted his answer: especially as it was only partially true. They would be passing hot springs, but not until they reached the colder region of the ice village, which was another day away yet.

"We need to move on," he said as the ferry girl began shaking out her towel.

"I've never worn the same underwear for more than one day without washing or changing it."

Hiei tried to keep the irritation and confusion from his face.

"I didn't want you to think that I had," she added, apparently sensing that he was perplexed by her words. "I'm very clean. Not obsessively so, but I am clean. And I always wear clean underwear."

"I don't need to know that," Hiei said when he felt that she would not stop talking until he said something.

"I always make an effort with my clothing."

"Are you packing that bag yet?"

"I know that most girls make an effort with their clothing, but I don't think that I make any less effort than any other girl. I always dress stylishly but appropriately. What do you think, Hiei? Do men really notice when a girl makes an effort to look good but still be taken seriously as–"

"Shut-up and pack the damn bag!"

"Don't you care what I look like?"

"No!"

"Well fine then, I'll just change into something ugly, and then you can explain to Inukasai why you married a woman with no sense of style!"

Hiei slowly narrowed his eyes, both at a loss as to why the ferry girl was apparently even more irate than he was and concerned that she knew she could blackmail him with their fake marriage for the sake him saving face in the presence of his nemesis.

"Wear whatever you want to wear," he said. "I don't care. Whatever it takes for you to stop faffing about and get moving."

She sighed and actually looked as though his answer had made her even more annoyed.

"Hiei, don't you notice how a woman looks?" she asked.

"Not really," he frankly replied.

"That can't be true!" she snapped. "You must have noticed how pretty Inukasai's wife was?"

Hiei felt his face twist. He had heard this argument before: it was the one Keiko always used on Yusuke, and there was no possible way for it to end well. It was a female tactic, used to back a man up into a corner that he could not safely escape from.

"I'm not going to talk to you about whether you or that bastard's wife is more attractive," he said sternly. "Because we are not really married and I'm not obliged to flatter your fragile ego. Unless you're hoping to seduce Inukasai away from his wife, the conversation is a moot point as far as I am concerned."

"I just want to know what it is that you find attractive about me, Hiei!" she replied, angrily cramming her towel back into her bag. "Because the only thing you admitted to was that you think I have bigger breasts than Inukasai's wife, and I'd like to think I'm more than just a pair of breasts, Hiei! They're not even that big! They are quite perky and firm, but–"

"We are not having this conversation!"

"Why not?"

"Because you're not really my wife and I'm not really attracted to you."

"Okay, why are you not attracted to me? What's wrong with me?"

Hiei twitched. When she had asked him the same question the night before he had been willing to dismiss her hysteria as a side-effect of her exhaustion and hunger, but she had no such excuse any more.

"Why are you here?" he asked her.

"What?" she echoed, her angered stance faltering as though she was surprised by his question.

"You said you came with me to Inugoya because you were my friend," he said. "Is that the truth or did you come with me because you think we are more than friends?"

"Hiei!" she snapped.

She looked indignant, which was good – mildly offensive, as it clearly indicated that she thought it outrageous that she was being accused of finding him attractive, but still good because it meant that she was not secretly harbouring some romantic inclination towards him.

"Why do you care so much whether or not someone else thinks you look pretty?" he asked.

"I just don't understand why nobody ever does," she replied, sounding and looking far more sedate.

Hiei contemplated telling her that she had made quite an impression on Inuyusha, but that was a huge insult and even Hiei had more tact than to voice it.

"Maybe you should worry more about what you think about yourself and not what everyone else thinks about you," he said instead.

"Yes, I know that's good advice, but Hiei, boys never like me the way they like other girls, and I feel like there's something seriously wrong with me," she said. "I don't know what it is and that just makes it worse."

"This is probably something you should speak to another woman about," Hiei suggested.

He thought he was being exceptionally patient with her, but she apparently did not appreciate that as she carried on talking at him.

"I've tried. They don't understand because it's not the same for them."

"Then speak to a man about it."

"That's what I'm trying to do now."

Hiei balled his hands into fists at his sides and held back a sneer of displeasure.

"Not me," he said. "Someone else."

"You're the only person I trust to be honest with me."

Hiei snorted involuntarily, at first assuming that she was making a joke. When he saw that she was completely serious, he was unsure if he found her words even more amusing or just disturbing.

"We're wasting time now," he said, stepping forward and grabbing the handle of her bag. "We have to get through the trees before the sun sets."

To his surprise she did not release the bag – which was also mildly amusing to him – as though she thought that by holding onto it she could stop Hiei from just taking it by force. He paused anyway, looking her in the eye and waiting long enough to hear her explain herself.

"Please Hiei," she said softly. "I just want to know what I'm doing wrong."

"You are asking the wrong person," he quietly replied, before tugging the bag from her grasp.

She opened her mouth and started to reach a hand towards him, but he did not wait any longer to let her say anything else, instead starting off into the forest. He moved a little slower than before until she had taken to the air and caught up to him. As he sped up again to the maximum speed he knew she could keep up with, Hiei silently hoped that she would not talk to him about her romantic obsession again: after all, it was hardly his area of expertise, and even thinking about it made him feel awkward and angry beyond reason.

* * *

Botan was still neither accustomed to nor fond of using random patches of ground as a toilet and her only consolation when she did so was that the route Hiei was taking her was remote and there was little to no risk of anyone seeing her in such an embarrassing position. She stood up from behind the bush and double-checked that she had pulled her tights up correctly before starting to move around the plant and back towards the campfire. In her first few steps she noticed that Hiei had assembled her tent again and in her next few steps she slowed to a halt as she noticed – after some looking around – that Hiei was sitting on a low branch of one of the larger trees at the edge of the forest, his eyes closed and his head down, but his bandana removed and his jagan eye fully open, emitting a soft violet light.

Had he been watching her?

Botan gasped quietly and held out one hand, her oar popping into her palm. She quietly sat onto her oar and raised herself up until she was on a level with Hiei, and she then silently drifted forwards, bringing herself alongside the branch he was sitting on. She started to lean towards him but stopped abruptly when he opened his eye nearest her and fixed an angry red iris onto her.

"What are you doing?" he growled.

"I was just about to ask you the very same question!" she said. "Were you watching me with your jagan eye?"

"Why would I use my jagan to watch you when you're right here?" he replied.

"I was behind a bush doing something private a minute ago!" she pointed out.

"Yes. Over there."

Hiei's open eye moved in the direction of the bush Botan had just left, and when she copied his action she realised that, from the height and angle he was sitting, he had a full view of where she had been without the need to use his third eye. She turned sharply back to him, ready to berate him for not alerting her to the fact that her hidden location was not as hidden as she had thought it was: but when she saw him close his jagan eye and open both of his own eyes fully, a strange look passing over his face as he did so, she changed her mind.

"What were you watching?" she asked instead, her insatiable curiosity once again besting any other instinct.

"It seems we really don't have long to get rid of Inukasai," he cryptically replied.

His answer could mean anything, Botan thought. He could have been watching spirit world and found out about her deal with Koenma, for all she knew.

"Kuwabara is trying to arrange a trip for himself and Yukina to Inugoya."

Botan's eyes widened. Hiei slowly replaced his bandana, looking far too indifferent given what he had just said.

"We can't let them go there!" she said. "Can you imagine? That nasty, lecherous old man Inuyusha will be all over Yukina! Especially since he seems to have a fetish for ice maidens…"

A sharp glare from Hiei made her break out into a sweat and grin nervously.

"I-I mean it's so filthy and smelly there, and the dog demons are so in your face, poor Yukina would be overwhelmed," she corrected herself.

"Kuwabara has asked Kurama for help to find the village," Hiei said. "He intends to take Yukina there as soon as he has finished his exams."

"And Kurama is going to help them get there?" Botan asked.

"I don't know," Hiei replied. "Kurama told Kuwabara he was unsure exactly where the village is – which is a lie – and he appeared to be trying to deter Kuwabara from going."

"Well that's something. When is Kuwabara's last exam?"

"Thursday. He intends to leave on Friday morning."

Botan tried not to show how pleased she was to hear the happily coincidental timing of Kuwabara's plans to her own.

"Well in that case we just have to make sure we get all the information we need to present to Yukina before Thursday is over," she said.

"Hn."

Botan did not really like the tone of Hiei's grunted response, but she tried to ignore it.

"I still can't find those hot springs you spoke about earlier, by the way," she said instead. "I flew up high to try to see if I could see them from the air, but unless they're buried or very small, I definitely didn't find them."

"They're at the end of the next part of our journey."

Botan, who had been having one last look around for any hint of a steam cloud or glitter of water reflecting the moonlight that might indicate a hot spring, turned back to Hiei.

"The next part of our journey?" she repeated. "You mean the ice village?"

"No, I mean the mountain pass to the ice village."

"Right…"

Botan looked about again, a worrying thought occurring to her then.

"I don't see the mountains," she pointed out. "Or are they hidden because they lead to the ice village – which itself is also hidden?"

"No, they're too far away to see," Hiei replied. "We should reach them by nightfall tomorrow though – provided we do start our journey at daybreak tomorrow."

Botan gulped.

"We're not actually arriving in the ice village tomorrow?" she asked.

"We'll go there the day after," Hiei replied.

"But tomorrow is Monday already," Botan said.

"Hn."

Botan understood then why Hiei's "hn" had the tone that it did: if they would not reach the ice village until Tuesday, they would likely never make it back to the living world or Inugoya before Thursday night. Hiei's comment about making sure they started early in the morning both made Botan feel guilty for sleeping in and gave her an idea that she hoped she could convince him to follow.

"Maybe we shouldn't stop here tonight," she began.

"It's already late, this is as good a campsite as any," he replied. "There is a small island in a lake not far from here that we could have camped on tonight, but going there means moving off-course. We're better to stay here."

"No, I mean maybe we shouldn't camp any more," she corrected him.

Hiei turned his head to look directly at her, giving her one of his looks that implied he thought she was being ridiculous.

"I'm not tired," she explained. "Not after sleeping so late. I could carry you on my oar. You could sleep while I fly. If you tell me which way to go, of course. You get the rest you need, and when you wake up… You could carry me while I sleep… It would waste less time…"

Botan felt a little awkward proposing the second part of her plan: it was one thing for her to carry Hiei on her oar, but it was quite another to expect him to carry her on his back, after all.

"Leave the tent here, and remove anything else unnecessary from your bag."

Botan was a little surprised at Hiei's response, as she had been expecting him to argue the practicality of her suggestion. She did not really want to have to explain to Captain Ootake that she had dumped the tent and some of the clothes he had given her in demon world, but she thought that maybe they could recover them later; and surely if the Special Defence Force used such things all the time, they did have some losses along the way.

"Okay," she agreed. "I can do that in two minutes."

She started to fly towards the ground, though she was disappointed when she heard what Hiei called after her.

"Don't leave the bag of hiruiseki behind, that's valuable."

Botan pouted as she leapt off her oar, silently wondering what sort of idiot Hiei thought she was that he had said something so obvious. She supposed he was still being cagey with her because she had tried to ask him about her romance problem, and he was far more uncomfortable talking about it than she had expected him to be: usually he would just be sarcastic or ignore someone if they spoke about something he found trifling, but he had become genuinely angry when she had tried to get a straight answer out of him. It was doubly frustrating because she had even been willing to deal with the consequences of him giving her a painfully blunt answer, but instead he had just been shifty and refused to tell her anything constructive.

And he was perhaps her only hope of ever getting a straight answer.

In her frustration Botan absent-mindedly threw her fleece blanket, her raincoat and most of the rest of the contents of her bag into the tent, taking only the small sack of money, the food rations, the flasks for gathering water and a small case of items she had not even bothered to open. She then tied the bag to the handle of her oar and flew back up to Hiei's side. As she approached him, she considered suggesting to him that he could sleep in her bag – as it was almost empty and quite large, he would easily fit inside it – and it would act like a hammock for him: but she thought that perhaps he might not appreciate that suggestion, and so she kept the idea to herself.

"I'm ready to go," she said.

Hiei nodded and leapt at her oar. Botan thought it quite odd that he landed so that he was sitting alongside her, as nobody had ever ridden with her in that position before; but she did not have long to contemplate the matter as she found Hiei staring at her with a slightly awkward look on his face.

"I'm trusting you not to drop me while I sleep," he told her.

Botan realised then that she had no way of guaranteeing that Hiei would not fall off her oar once he was asleep and no longer able to hold himself in place.

"You'll have to hold me."

Botan blinked.

"Obviously you'll have to hold me," Hiei said.

"Obviously," she said.

"Obviously," he confirmed.

Botan nodded.

"Which side is best for you?"

Botan tried to suppress how strange it sounded hearing Hiei ask that question, as though he was asking her which side of the bed she preferred to sleep on.

"It's fine where you are," she said mechanically. "I steer with my right hand, so I can use my left hand to… Hold you…"

"I can tie us together if you can't hold me."

"Please don't do that."

For a long and awkward moment Botan held her position hovering by the tree branch, sitting side-by-side with Hiei. Once she started to feel her heart slow a little she took a deep breath and forced a smile.

"How should we do this?" she asked, daring to look at Hiei from the corner of her eye.

"Just put your arm around me," Hiei gruffly replied, keeping his eyes forward.

"Like-like I'm hugging you?" Botan asked quietly.

"I could use my scarf to tie our arms together or to tie my legs to your oar."

"It's fine."

Botan took another deep breath and held the air in her lungs as she put her arm around Hiei's shoulders. Even though he was wearing a vest and his cloak, his shoulders still felt tense and hard against her arm. She tried not to think about it too much, sighing slowly as she gripped her hand around his shoulder furthest from her.

"That's cute, but we're not on a date, Botan."

Botan froze, silently wondering what she had done wrong.

"Move your hand lower."

"Why?"

"When I fall asleep I'll slouch and you'll drop me. Move your hand lower."

"This feels weird…"

"I can tie us together. Or I can go on alone and leave you here."

Botan opened her fingers and repositioned her hand to Hiei's waist.

"Now fly," he ordered.

"Okay."

Botan started to fly in the direction they had been moving when they had left the forest, waiting for Hiei to tell her otherwise.

"I don't need to sleep for long," he said as they flew. "The journey from here, by air, is quite simple. Do you see the bend in the river in the distance? Fly beyond that and follow the water downstream until you see the land change. Head towards the hills from there, and you will gradually move into higher ground and colder weather. That way ultimately leads to the ice village. I will probably be awake before we even reach the lake though."

"Okay," Botan said.

"Don't let me fall. I'm trusting you."

"Okay…"

* * *

Botan was torn between waking Hiei and letting him sleep. She had several good reasons to wake him and her main reason for not wanting to was fear, but still she dithered. They had passed the bend in the river, followed the water downstream and started into the hillier landscape beyond. As the ground was rising up, so too Botan was forced to fly higher to keep herself airborne, and flying higher meant thinner air and lower temperatures. Hiei had warned that the journey to the ice village would get colder, but Botan had thought that Hiei would awaken before they got that far. She was starting to regret having left all of her clothes back at their would-be campsite, and she was starting to wish that she had not proposed journeying onwards into the night, as in the dark of night, she was forced to fly low to keep her bearings, and as the ground was rocky and rising and she was flying very fast, she kept coming dangerously close to whacking one of her ankles against a jagged boulder.

And, just to make matters worse, there was an increasingly thick cloud cover over the hills ahead, and flying into it was making the air damp – which only made the cold seem colder – and it reduced visibility further still. The only thing stopping Botan from being unbearably cold was the heat of Hiei's body against her.

Which was the reason she was afraid to wake Hiei up.

Despite feeling very uncomfortable about putting her arm around him, Botan was surprised to learn that Hiei did not share her apprehension, as he quickly fell asleep at her side. Within minutes of leaving the campsite, Hiei's head was resting heavily against her shoulder and his breathing had become soft and slow. A few minutes more and his entire weight had been leaning hard against her side, making it difficult for her to keep her arm around him and keep him upright. A few minutes more again and Hiei slumped over, landing with his upper body over her lap. At first she had panicked, expecting him to slide off her oar entirely: but instead he had somehow managed to wind his arms around her leg furthest from him, using her thigh as a pillow, and bringing his legs up to rest his feet against the flat of the blade of her oar. He was incredibly warm and the heat had been quite welcome as far as Botan was concerned, but the fact still remained that, at some point, whether she woke him or he awoke naturally, Hiei would eventually awaken and find himself sleeping in her lap like a child with his mother.

And thinking of Hiei as a child and his mother, Botan had to wonder just how close they were to the ice village. Hiei had implied that if they had maintained the speed they had been travelling at – which, to the best of her knowledge, Botan believed that she had done since leaving the campsite – that it would take the duration of a day's worth of daylight hours to reach the edges of the village, and yet within just a few short hours, she had already reached high ground and freezing fog.

Maybe Hiei had misjudged how close they were or maybe she had been flying faster than she had given herself credit for.

Just as she was starting to think that maybe she had overachieved and reached their goal early, Botan's optimism came to an abrupt end as she inadvertently flew at a large, unforgiving rock. The end of the handle of her oar cleared the rock, but her legs, the bag and the blade of her oar were not so fortunate. Hiei's weight against her thighs kept Botan anchored on the oar after her legs smashed into the rock – something that would otherwise have thrown her from her ride – but when the blade of her oar whacked against the stone Hiei's legs were dislodged and he fell from Botan and the oar, and Botan was then throw over, landing painfully on the rocky hillside, her left shoulder being the first part of her to hit the ground. The momentum of her forwards motion caused her to skid upon landing, and it was only when she tried to get up that she realised she had hurt herself quite badly.

"Hiei!" she cried, trying to look about for him.

She had at least had a slight warning of the impending crash landing, but Hiei had been sleeping and had no such forewarning. When she saw blood on some of the rocks by her feet – some of the very sharp, abrasive rocks – she began to fear that he had cracked his head open or broken a limb.

"Hiei!" she yelled.

"What the hell happened?"

Botan was stunned into silence as Hiei stepped into her line of view, standing on the hillside without so much as a hair out of place or a tear in his clothing.

"I crashed," she meekly replied. "Are you okay?"

"My reflexes aren't as slow as yours," he replied, holding up one hand.

Botan squinted through the murky darkness at what he was holding, eventually realising that it was the velveteen bag of hirui stones she had taken to demon world with her. She peered over her right shoulder and saw then that her oar and the sparse remaining contents of her bag were strewn about the hillside following the collision. She turned her attention back to Hiei in time to see him stuff the money into his pants pocket before crouching down at her side.

"You shouldn't have come with me," he said.

Botan growled and tried to rise again, but pain, weakness and the sound of rushing water in her ears brought her back down to the ground.

"Don't try to move," Hiei told her. "I'll make you comfortable and then I will continue onwards on foot."

"I can still fly," Botan protested.

"Really?"

Hiei pointed at Botan's oar, which was lying dormant further down the hillside; and, as she concentrated on it, Botan realised then that there was a crack in the wood at the point where the blade met the handle.

"I can fix that," she said, turning her attention back to Hiei.

"Maybe so, but I'm not getting on it again," he muttered as he stood up again. "If you couldn't even keep us airborne when it was whole, I don't trust your ability to control it now it's damaged."

Botan sighed and closed her eyes, her body recovering from the initial shock of her accident and starting to relax, making her increasingly aware of just how many parts of her body were in pain in one way or another. She hoped that Hiei would not hold her mistake against her and leave her to find her own way back to spirit world.

* * *

Hiei hurriedly collected the contents of Botan's bag, piling everything up by her damaged oar. As they had collided with something as hard and immobile as a rock, the oar had stopped almost instantly, meaning the contents of the bag had not spread very far; in fact, Hiei noted, the ferry girl had been thrown further from the crash site than any of her belongings had. He had noticed that she abandoned almost all of the things she had been carrying, but as he had not really been au fait with the exact contents of the bag in the first place, it was difficult for him to be sure that he had found everything that had fallen from the bag: particularly so when he noticed how few items remained.

He sat down onto a rock facing the pile, with Botan ahead of him and still in his line of sight, and he spread out what he had recovered. There was a briefcase that looked much like the one the ferry girl had carried around on some of the missions they had worked on together back when Yusuke had still been a spirit detective, there was the bag of money – which Hiei had been careful to grab when everything had been thrown from the oar during the crashlanding – there were two small containers with dried food in them and two empty drinking flasks. And a pair of panties.

Simply out of curiosity – and for no other reason at all – Hiei leaned forwards and pinched his thumb and forefinger into the red lacy material on the ground, slowly lifting it up in the air. He briefly refocused his eyes onto the ferry girl, checking that she was still lying in the position he had left her and therefore could not see him, before turning his hand around in the air in front of his face. He supposed that she would be pleased that she had a clean change of underwear, and that ought to stop her moaning somewhat: but the presence of one random item of her underwear did raise two questions in Hiei's mind. First of all, he wondered why, of everything the old pervert had taken, he had not taken such a suggestive undergarment. And secondly, Hiei thought as he used his other hand to stretch out the panties in front of his face to get a better view of their shape, for a woman who had done nothing but complain about the lack of lovers she had in her life, the ferry girl certainly kept herself dressed in underwear that was clearly more aesthetic than practical.

Hiei wondered if the one item of Botan's underwear that remained had been left by Inuyusha because it was the least alluring item of her underwear that had been in the bag.

Hiei wondered if she was wearing something even more provocative underneath those skin-tight, vaguely transparent, milky-coloured tights she had on: in the prone position she was in, he could probably see for himself if he adjusted his position just slightly.

Hiei threw down the girl's underwear and quickly got to his feet, forcing himself to concentrate on the most salient issue regarding the remaining contents of the bag. He walked over to Botan, moving around into her line of sight and then crouching down so that she could look him in the eye without straining herself.

"Where is the medical kit that was in the bag?" he asked her. "Did you leave it at the campsite?"

Her light blue eyebrows slowly drew together and her lips pouted in a way that did little to ease Hiei's concerns.

"There was a medical kit in my bag?" she asked.

Hiei stood up again, mostly to stop himself from throttling her. He turned away from her, looking back down the hillside. He was relatively impressed to see that Botan had been flying at a decent speed during his slumber, as they had passed the halfway point to the ice village: but that was not entirely a positive thing, as it left him with a difficult decision to make. He glanced over his shoulder at the ferry girl, reminding himself visually that she was quite badly and quite extensively injured – he pushed aside the notion that he had never seen her wounded before she had started getting involved with his problems with Inukasai, and yet since then she had consistently gotten herself injured one way or another – and she needed better care than he could give her with the limited healing powers he had at his disposal. Healing others was a skill that most demons mastered as part of any training regime – even Yusuke had picked up some basic first aid skills – but Hiei had never bothered learning how to do anything other than heal his own wounds, as he had thought learning to help someone else with his energy was a waste of time.

He briefly allowed himself to wonder if that bastard Inukasai had mastered any healing powers.

Hiei shook his head and concentrated on the options remaining to him: he could either leave Botan where she was and run back to the campsite to recover the medical kit or he could carry her on to the ice village. He could easily go back to the campsite and be back within half a day, but during that time the ferry girl was quite exposed and vulnerable where she was, and although they were on a remote and cold path, there was always some idiot climbing the path to try to reach the hiruiseki-making ice maidens, and with her pastel colouring and pale complexion, the ferry girl would probably be mistaken for an ice maiden by one such cretin and get herself abducted. And in the time it would take to go back, get the supplies, return, dress her wounds and get her on her feet, Hiei knew that he could have reached the ice village, even if he was carrying a sleeping woman on his back.

But Hiei did not especially relish the idea of arriving at the ice village – the village populated entirely by women who hated men, and more especially, hated him – with a half-dead woman on his back. But at some point, the ferry girl was going to need help for her injuries, and Hiei could not really leave her where she was for too long, lest her situation worsen; either from her injuries draining her energy or from someone less savoury chancing upon her.

But time was not on Hiei's side: when he had been checking on Yukina before nightfall, he had heard Kurama and Yusuke discussing the matter, and, even though Kurama had not told Kuwabara where Inugoya was or how to get there, Yusuke was trying to convince him otherwise, on the basis that he thought it was safer to let Kuwabara and Yukina go to Inukasai's hometown directly rather than let them stumble around demon world aimlessly trying to find it for themselves. It was already the early hours of Sunday morning, and, after his exam on Thursday, Kuwabara was sure to be eager to set off to visit his new best friend, which meant there was only a day left to find proof that Inukasai was not Yukina's brother before the ice maiden visited the village of the dog demons and started getting too attached to them all. Hiei knew that the potential damage would very soon be irreversible if he did not act quickly; but, under his current circumstances, acting quickly and acting in the best interests of himself and the ferry girl were not necessarily the same thing.

Hiei had always been good at repressing his feelings, but he found it especially hard to suppress the overwhelming emotions of anger and resentment he felt as he packed up Botan's bag and pulled the handle over his neck, hanging the bag over his chest, and then he moved over to the ferry girl herself, hauling her up despite her muted cries of pain.

"You better appreciate what I'm about to do for you," he grumbled as he pulled her good arm over his shoulder and then lifted up her legs in his arms, holding her against his back.

"I'm so sorry Hiei," she mumbled into his ear.

"Don't bother apologising," he grunted. "Just get some rest and try not to look too pathetic when I have to confront the full extent of your wounds."

She made a small noise of confusion but Hiei blocked it out, pointing himself in the direction he was loathed to go and started running, trying not to think too much about what the morning would bring.

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Hiei and Botan finally arrive at the ice village, where Botan realises the only thing worse than her injuries from her accident is what the ice maidens do to her while she sleeps. Under pressure from a nosy ice maiden named Nanako, Botan continues the lie of her marriage to Hiei: something she shortly regrets when she sees how the ice maidens receive the news. **Chapter 11: Back to the Start**


	11. Back to the Start

**A/N:** I'm trying to write and post as much as I can before I leave in May (I definitely won't be posting anything between 11th May and 1st June). So I apologise for the sporadic updates.

Also, regarding this next chapter, you just know that any scene I write in the ice village is going to involve large quantities of socially awkward conversations and happenings.

* * *

**Chapter 11 – Back to the Start**

Hiei could not decide if the fact that Botan was still sleeping at midday was impressive, if it was an indication of laziness or if she was near-comatose from her injuries; whatever the case, he was glad that she was asleep as he trudged along the final stretch of their journey. He had run for as long as he could before it became impractical to do so, slowly his pace gradually as the need to do so arose. He was close to being able to give her the help that she needed, but he was still dreading what he would need to do before that could happen.

As he lifted a knee to his chest and took a step forwards, pressing his foot down into the snow, Hiei bitterly considered that the last thing he had ever expected to do in his life was to return to the ice village, and for his opening conversation with whoever met him there to be a plea for help. The ice maidens were highly skilled in healing – which Hiei had always thought was hypocritical of the cold-hearted bitches, as healing was a selfless art – and he knew that if they turned their powers on the ferry girl, she would be back to her bouncing, bubbly self in a matter of hours. But getting to that point did mean asking the women who hated him, the women who had cast him out and never welcomed his return, for help; which was something Hiei would not normally have done, especially when he could have just taken the ferry girl back to the campsite, tied up her shoulder and left her to rest and heal herself.

But Hiei was feeling something he never had before – something he suspected was dangerously close to guilt – that the ferry girl, the one person willing to stand by him without question when Inukasai had appeared, had become badly injured trying to help him. He owed it to her to ensure that she was healed quickly. That was why he was taking her to the ice maidens for help.

The fact that getting her back on her feet quickly meant it would be easier to keep her at his side was merely a consequence of his obligation.

It was strange travelling without the sound of her voice.

Hiei lumbered onwards through increasingly deep snow, keeping his head down against the swirling snow on the wind and straining to see through the near whiteout conditions. Being a fire demon and having a naturally high body temperature, the cold usually did little to bother him, but he was starting to feel the cold a little as he was forced to move so slowly through the snow and because he had, some time back on his journey, removed his cloak and scarf and wrapped the ferry girl up in them: because he doubted she would share his tolerance for extreme conditions. As he had hauled her limp body onto his back again he had noticed that the worst of her wounds – the gouge in her left shoulder – had at least stopped bleeding, but as time had passed, bruises had started to appear over her body, an especially large one visible through her pale tights by her left hip and thigh.

It was not just that she had hurt herself travelling with him that bothered Hiei's conscience, it was also the fact that he had been happy when she had crashed. After all, if she had not crashed when she did, he would have awoken to find himself in the prone position he had apparently ended up in during his slumber, and if he had awoken to find himself snuggling into the lap of a ferry girl, his gut reaction would have been to force her to crash land, just so that he would not have to face the awkwardness of admitting to her (or himself) that he had been sleeping in such a way. When he had woken up, only three things had gone through his mind: he was humiliated that he had cuddled into the girl in his sleep; he was relieved that they were crashing and he would not have to explain himself or endure her teasing on the matter; and he needed to catch the bag of money before it burst and spilled all over the hillside.

It never once occurred to him that a creature as fragile as the ferry girl would suffer badly from such a fall and that he really ought to have caught her rather than the money.

He still found it odd that she was even with him. If someone had told him that an imposter was going to turn up and steal his life and that Botan would be the only person who would fight in his corner to defend his honour, he would have thought he was listening to another of Yusuke's misaimed attempts at humour. Her initial reaction to the whole situation had been surprising enough, but the way she had vehemently argued with the dog demons in Inugoya was something Hiei could not have believed if he had not witnessed it with his own eyes. She had clearly been terrified the entire time, but she had never once faltered. Every time Inukasai – or any member of his enormous family – had said something slighting against Hiei, she had leapt to his defensive without hesitation, the passion of vengeful wrath illuminating her eyes and flushing her cheeks in a way that could not be denied as genuine. Hiei had never really thought of Botan as a fiercely loyal ally before, and although she was more of a hindrance than a help on the physical side (her strength was so pitiful, even one of the dog demon pups could have bested her with a single blow) she was quite a welcome aid on the psychological side. It was easier to stay focused on not killing Inukasai and on finding answers when there was someone else around to agree with him that what he was doing was right and what had been done unto him was wrong.

Her loyalty, combined with her surprisingly strong resolve, her obsession with romance and her slightly kinky taste in underwear left Hiei at something of a loss to understand why she thought nobody found her attractive.

Talking to Botan about her insecurities regarding her own attractiveness was really a sore, awkward subject for Hiei – in ways that she would never understand and he could never let her know about – and he hoped that she would let the matter go. She had probably just ended a relationship with some limp-wristed bureaucrat from spirit world with soft hair and delicate fingers and she was probably just indulging in self-pity. If he ignored her long enough she was sure to let the matter drop eventually.

It was a little odd that he had never seen her with a man or heard her mention any particular man, and her earlier comment about being obsessed with romance in other people's lives stemming from the fact that she had none in her own seemed to imply she might have been telling the truth about her lack of suitors, but Hiei tried not to dwell on his curiosity regarding any holes in his logic, as he ran the distinct risk of voicing his questions, and if he showed any interest in the subject, she would surely never let it go.

And if she carried on, she would start asking Hiei about the romantic endeavours in his life, and that was, by far, the part of the inevitable conversation he wanted to avoid the most.

The absolute last thing he needed was Botan thinking that she had just stumbled upon another subject they both strangely agreed and understood each other upon.

Hiei stopped walking as he saw two shadows moving through the haze of snow ahead of him. Focusing his attention a little harder, he could just about make out the final stretch of his journey: the precariously narrow, jagged path that led up to the ice village. The path was covered in snow that lay on top of slippery ice, and the winds crossing the path were violent and blasted from several different directions. The path itself was barely three feet wide and the drop on either side was enough to kill most creatures: hence why the ice maidens chose the cliff at the apex of the path to throw their emiko children from. Crossing the path alone was a treacherous gamble at best, but crossing it with an unconscious patient made the task all the more critical; and so Hiei was unsure if he was relieved or apprehensive to see two ice maidens moving along the path to meet him.

He held his position as they drew nearer, watching as their forms started to become discernible through the snow: and he could not help the look of surprise on his face when he saw that they were both quite young. He had expected one of the elders to come to greet him – if anyone had come at all – as they would surely have sensed his approach and wanted to vanquish him before he reached the edges of their precious home. Instead, two ice maidens who were younger than Hiei himself were moving towards him, their solemn eyes looking directly at him without a hint of either fear or interest. He waited until they were close enough to hear him before addressing them, only mildly surprised to see that the sound of his voice made them stop in their tracks.

"I need passage into your village," he told them. "I need assistance for my companion."

The two ice maidens looked at each other before edging closer to Hiei, leaving the narrow path altogether and peering over his shoulders at the still unconscious ferry girl draped over his back.

"What sort of creature is your companion?" one of the ice maidens asked.

Hiei thought about lying. He thought about telling them that she was some kind of demon or even perhaps a human; but he did not want to risk incurring their distrust and them refusing him help, and so pushed aside his own concerns and pride, and told the truth.

"She's a ferry girl," he admitted. "From spirit world."

"We weren't expecting a visit from spirit world today," the other ice maiden commented.

Hiei thought her answer strange, but when he gave the matter a little thought, he remembered then that Botan had mentioned spirit world maintaining good relations with the ice village, and perhaps being honest about her identity could prove to his advantage.

"She's here on a special mission from Koenma," he tried. "She fell and injured herself on the approach here, Koenma sent me to collect her. She has wounds that require attention. As she was on her way here, you really should consider assisting her."

One of the ice maidens nodded, and although the other did not respond, she did follow when the first ice maiden walked around Hiei's back.

"It's very dangerous to cross this path," one of them said. "It's not so dangerous for us because we are better able to walk in the snow and on the ice. You should let us carry her on from here."

Hiei looked back over his shoulder, reluctantly releasing the ferry girl as the two ice maidens manoeuvred her onto the back of the tallest one.

"You of course must remain here," the shorter one said. "Men are not allowed entry to our village."

"Not to mention you would not survive the crossing from here," the taller one added as she reaffirmed her hold of Botan.

"We will return her here once we have healed her and she has delivered her message from spirit world."

Hiei tried to think of a good reason to argue that point, but decided against it, lest he damage the offer of help for Botan. Instead he nodded his head and pretended not to care as they started back along the path with Botan, the shorter ice maiden walking behind the taller one to help protect the ferry girl from the elements.

He would just watch them with his jagan eye, and as soon as the ferry girl was on her feet, he would charge into the village and start demanding answers.

* * *

Botan moaned in a way that made her hope nobody had heard her. She blinked to focus her eyes, looking about herself and finding that she appeared to be in a cave of some sort. The last thing she could remember was falling asleep on Hiei's back, so she supposed he had taken her into a cave to camp for the night before reaching the ice village in the morning.

Though she was sure she had fallen asleep in the early hours of Sunday morning, which left her wondering if she had somehow slept all the way through to Monday morning if that were the case.

She made to lift herself up onto her elbows, moaning again in a way she was not proud of when her left shoulder locked painfully after only the slightest movement and her head thumped back down against the pillow. As she lay trying to ignore the dull and persistent pain in her shoulder, Botan wondered when Hiei had found a pillow for her. Peering down at herself, she then wondered when he had found a fleece blanket and a waterproof quilt, painstakingly embroidered with blue flowers and snowflakes. She wondered what she was lying on, as she seemed to be elevated from the ground as though she were lying on an actual bed. The cave she was in was remarkably clean too. And white. There were two sources of light, both emitting from mounted ornate oil lamps, the likes of which Botan had never seen before in demon world. There was even a rug on the floor and a glass shelf adorned with pretty little ornaments carved from wood or else compiled of pebbles and shells.

Botan gulped, a sweat breaking out across her forehead, despite the oppressive cold in the air around her: she was in the ice village.

Somehow, despite the ice village having seemed far away before she had fallen asleep, Botan had awoken to find herself not only arrived at her destination but also in a bed, in what seemed to be the igloo snow-house of an ice maiden. She wondered whose house it was. Was it Hiei's mother's house? Was it Inukasai's mother's house? It seemed too comfortable and homely to be a prison – though it was not beyond the realm of Botan's panicked pessimism to assume that she had been arrested by the ice maidens. She wondered how Hiei had managed to get there so quickly, through freezing fog and with her sleeping on his back. She wondered where Hiei was.

Botan made a renewed effort to get up. Without Hiei, she was in a very dangerous situation. She knew that Yukina was not a typical representation of the average ice maiden, and that most of the residents of the glacial village were at best indifferent and at worst vicious, and without Hiei to protect and advise her, she could not remain lying in a bed waiting for trouble to come and find her. She grabbed the duvet with her right hand, gripping it as firmly as she could, and hauled herself up into a sitting position, all the while trying to keep her left arm and shoulder as still as possible. Once she was up she took a few deep breaths to calm herself and wait for the pain to subside enough that she could continue, before using her good hand to desperately claw aside the bedding. Once she had uncovered her legs she swung them over the edge of the bed, aiming her feet for the rug. At a stretch she reached her goal, and she managed to stand up, on the rug.

When she stood upright, Botan realised a series of things, each more horrifying than the last. First of all, she could not stand fully upright because she was taller than the highest point of the room, and with her sore shoulder hindering the mobility of her neck, she was forced to bend her knees to compensate and keep her head straight. Secondly, she was wearing a very exquisitely made – if very plain of design – silk kimono, over a soft fleece body wrap; she even had woollen socks on. Whilst she was happy to have a change of clothes, she wondered where the clothes had come from, and, far more pressing an issue, Botan wondered who had undressed her and dressed her into the clothes she was suddenly wearing. And the third and final thing Botan noticed caused her to at first hold her breath in disbelief. Touching her good hand to her head – a self-conscious action she had inadvertently carried out at first – she noticed that her hair felt different. After grabbing at the back of her head a few times and remembering how to breathe again – only to commence hyperventilating – Botan began looking desperately about the room, shortly locating what she sought: a mirror mounted on the wall. She crept to the edge of the rug and squatted down lower to look at her reflection, the visual confirmation of what she had felt eliciting a scream of dismay that she could not contain the volume or the length of.

When an ice maiden burst into the room, staring up at her with wide, fearful eyes, rather than sensibly remember her situation and ask the questions she knew, deep down, that she really ought to, Botan yelled out the one question that was running rampant around her mind.

"What happened to my hair?"

"We had no choice," the ice maiden replied, holding up a small, delicate hand as though she thought the gesture might calm Botan somehow.

"Where is it?" Botan cried.

"Your hair?" the ice maiden asked.

"No, the great city of Atlantis!" Botan snapped back.

"It sounds like that would be the home of the water demons."

"I was being sarcastic! Where is my hair?"

"We had to cut it off."

"I can see that! Where is it?"

"…We can't reattach it. It will regrow though."

Botan sighed, looking at her reflection again. As she had been sleeping on her hair, it was hard for her to tell if it had been cut into a flattering style or not: all she could clearly make out was that the majority of it had been cut off, leaving it even shorter than Keiko's had been after she had rescued Yusuke from the fire.

"Was your hair the source of your power?"

Botan shifted her eyes to the ice maiden at her side, giving her what she hoped was a disapproving look that Hiei would have been proud of.

"There was a lot of blood in your hair, it was badly knotted and some sections were frozen from the journey up," the ice maiden added. "There really isn't much we can do for blood frozen into hair other than to cut it out."

"I could have soaked it out in one of the hot springs I was supposed to be getting use of before I came here…" Botan grumbled.

"Are you feeling better now?"

Botan ran her eyes over the ice maiden addressing her, and in doing so she started to think that maybe she understood a little better the confusion there might have been regarding the identities of Hiei's and Inukasai's mothers: the girl before her was the same height and build as Yukina, with the same high and broad cheekbones, the same small, slightly upturned nose, the same heart-shaped lips that almost gave the impression of a permanent pout, and her hair was that same ultra-fine texture. Her colouring was only marginally different from Yukina's: her hair was, Botan noticed with a hint of bitterness, a powder blue colour and her eyes were a light violet. But, had the girl introduced herself as Yukina's sister, Botan would have struggled to find a good reason to question her on the matter.

"Are all the ice maidens as short as you?"

Botan wondered if she had been spending too much time around Hiei: usually she had more tact than to be so blunt and direct.

"With a few exceptions, yes."

Botan was equally as surprised that the ice maiden answered her without batting an eyelid, as though being blunt and direct was an accepted social custom in her village.

"My name is Nanako," she offered. "My friend and I met you on your approach here: your double-agent servant was carrying you here. He said Koenma had sent you here on business."

"My double-agent servant?" Botan echoed.

Botan momentarily forgot about her shoulder and even her hair as she tried to figure out what Nanako was talking about.

"Oh, you mean Hiei!" she blurted out as the realisation occurred to her.

"He didn't give his name," Nanako replied.

"Hiei isn't a double-agent or a servant!" Botan quickly corrected her.

"He said Koenma asked him to assist you, as part of your mission."

Botan paused, realising then that Nanako had twice mentioned a mission from Koenma: had Hiei somehow found out about the mission Koenma had sent her on? Perhaps he had, and when he had – without her conscious to explain it to him in context – he had assumed the worst and abandoned her at the ice village to confront Inukasai alone with the truth about his mother.

"Where is Hiei now?" she asked quietly.

"I'm sorry, we cannot grant men access to our village," Nanako replied. "He said he would wait for you at the end of the access path."

Botan wondered what that meant.

"He said you're a ferry girl, is that right?" Nanako asked.

Botan found Nanako's mannerisms to be really disconcerting: she looked her straight in the eye as she spoke but there was no hint of emotion in her expression or tone.

"Yes, I am a ferry girl," Botan slowly replied. "My name is Botan."

"It's nice to meet you, Botan," Nanako replied, bowing her head but otherwise looking as though she could not care any less whether she had just met someone nice or not. "Welcome to our village."

"Where's Hiei?" Botan asked again.

"He's waiting for you at the end of the access path," Nanako said again. "I told him once you were well enough to complete your mission, you would return for him, but that he could not come any further into our village."

Botan narrowed her eyes, semblances of her deductive skills returning to her as she repeated the ice maiden's words inside her head.

"My mission in this village?" she asked.

"Yes," Nanako replied. "That's why you're here, isn't it? Koenma sent you to us on a special mission? That was what Hiei told us."

"Yes, that's right," Botan said. "I'm here in a special mission. I need to ask some questions about the emikos born in your village."

Nanako gasped and, for the first time since she had entered the room, a hint of emotion appeared in her eyes.

"I need you to let Hiei enter the village," Botan added.

She was almost sure that Hiei did not know the truth about her mission from Koenma, that he had instead merely told a lie to Nanako in order to allow a ferry girl passage into the ice village: and so she therefore felt safe to request that Hiei join her.

"Men aren't allowed," Nanako replied, her eyes still tinged with fear following Botan's use of the word "emiko".

"But Hiei's different," Botan said. "He's a perfectly decent guy, I promise you."

"Even if he is your servant, or a double-agent for spirit world, the elders would never allow it," Nanako said.

"He's my husband."

Botan pulled a face at her own reflection. She suddenly understood why Hiei had lied about her being his wife: it was a surprisingly easy and convenient argument to make when in a pressing situation.

"Your husband?"

Botan slowly moved her eyes back to Nanako, feeling mostly afraid to see the dark interest suddenly giving depth to Nanako's face.

"You married a man?" she asked.

"Yes, I did," Botan lied mechanically.

"What's that like?"

Botan wanted to smile at the hint of scandalous fascination animating Nanako's features; and she decided that since she had gone as far as she had anyway, there was no real harm in continuing.

"Why it's lovely," she said. "Hiei is a wonderful husband. He's very romantic and he thinks I'm pretty and he never thinks that I say and do things without thinking."

That was quite a stretch of the truth, Botan thought to herself, but Nanako did not know her well enough to see that, and so she made no attempt to qualify her words.

"Do you… Do you have carnal relations with him?"

"Yes…?"

"What's that like?"

"It's, uh… It's lovely?"

"So have you… Have you seen it?"

Botan regained some of her confidence then, her face twisting.

"Seen what?" she asked.

Nanako checked over her shoulder before stepping more fully into the room and quietly closing the door behind herself. She then crept closer to Botan, leaning towards her in a way that made Botan bend her knees further, bringing her ear level with Nanako's mouth, allowing the ice maiden to whisper her next question; and even though she whispered her words so close to Botan's ear that Botan could feel the warmth of her breath on her skin, the ice maiden spoke so quietly, Botan barely made her words out.

"Well-well he is my husband," she replied, hoping she did not look as embarrassed as she felt.

"What does it look like?" Nanako asked, her interest turning almost into a look of fevered hunger. "Is it ugly? The elders say it's ugly, but what would they know? They've never seen one. What does it feel like? Have you touched it with your hands?"

Botan chewed hard on her lip and tried not to picture herself putting her hands on any part of Hiei's anatomy, far less the one part of his body that Nanako was focusing far too much attention on. It was not just that she was talking about it that was making Botan uncomfortable, it was that she looked far too much like Yukina, and it was like listening to Yukina talk about it.

"I really need Hiei to be here," she said, hoping to bring the conversation back onto the subject of getting Hiei into the ice village.

"Why?" Nanako asked. "Do you need to fornicate with him?"

Botan's jaw dropped, but Nanako appeared not to notice just how blunt and tactless she was being. When someone knocked softly on the door Botan was relieved, as Nanako looked panicked, as though she had been caught discussing something taboo, and the presence of someone else might finally stop her, Botan thought. Nanako cautiously opened the door and peered out of the room before taking a step back. Another ice maiden entered the room, bowing her head at Botan as Nanako closed the door behind her.

"I came to see how you are feeling," she said.

Botan started to tell her that she was feeling much better, but stopped short in abject horror as Nanako spoke over her.

"Botan is married to that man who was carrying her," she said. "And she's seen his penis!"

Botan grinned nervously when the other ice maiden turned to her with the same look of shocked curiosity that Nanako had been wearing earlier.

"You know," she began slowly. "If you let Hiei into the village, maybe I could tell you more about… Him…"

"Really?" the second ice maiden asked.

"Could you get him to show us his penis?" Nanako asked.

"Absolutely no way!" Botan yelped.

"Why not?" Nanako asked.

Botan was not sure which horrified her more: the fact that Nanako would ask for Hiei to expose himself to her or the fact that she failed to understand why asking such a question was immoral.

"Because he's my husband, that's why!" Botan snapped. "And any intimate part of his body is for my eyes only!"

"That doesn't seem very fair," Nanako said, rather matter-of-factly. "You've already seen his penis. We've never seen a penis before."

"Well that's not my problem!" Botan argued.

"I think she's touched his penis too," Nanako said to her friend.

Botan gasped.

"Well that's really not fair," Nanako's friend said. "She's from spirit world, they have men there. She's probably seen thousands of penises."

"Hey!" Botan yelped.

"She doesn't think it's a big deal because she looks at penises all the time," Nanako said.

"You're making me sound bad!" Botan protested.

"If your husband married you, he must not mind women seeing his penis," Nanako said.

"Exactly," her friend said with a nod of her head. "So he should let us have a look at his penis."

"You girls use that p-word far too freely!" Botan yelled. "It's vulgar and you should be ashamed of yourselves! Do your mother's know you speak this way?"

"Our mother's don't even know we let you in here," Nanako said.

"If they did, they wouldn't have let us take you this far," Nanako's friend added.

"We did you a favour," Nanako said. "Why won't you do us a favour in return and let us see your husband's penis?"

"I already told you why!" Botan snapped. "Now stop asking about it!"

"Have you had his penis inside you?"

Botan squawked out a noise of horrified, embarrassed disbelief: which drew three more young ice maidens into the room. Nanako and her friend looked suddenly guilty and Botan felt relieved: even if the new arrivals had come to oust her from the village, that was surely a better fate than listening to two girls talking about Hiei's manhood. One of the newly arrived ice maidens – who was the tallest and looked to be the oldest of the group – turned stern blue-green eyes to Botan.

"What are you doing in here?" she asked harshly.

"We were talking about penises," Nanako plainly answered her.

"That's what I thought!" the older ice maiden said, giving Botan an even sterner look. "Why didn't anyone tell me? I want to know about penises just as much as the next girl!"

Botan groaned and wilted, the pain in her shoulder suddenly seeming insignificant and her trip to Inugoya suddenly seeming easy and uneventful.

* * *

In his boredom – and because, without his cloak or scarf, the cold had become quite invasive – Hiei had melted himself a hole through the snow and ice to sit in. He told himself he had melted the hole because he wanted to sit on the ground rather than the snow, and not that he had melted the hole because it gave him a place to huddle over for warmth out of sight of anyone who might think him pathetic for huddling over for warmth. With the rotten weather that surrounded the ice village and darkened out the sky, it was almost impossible to tell what time of day it was: though by his own best estimation, he guessed it to be early evening. He could use his jagan eye to check, but he did not want to waste energy, as he suspected he might need it to keep warm if he had to wait much longer for the ice maidens to finish healing the ferry girl.

He supposed that he could use his jagan to check on the progress of Botan's recovery: but for some reason – other than his desire to conserve energy – he could not quite bring himself to do so. He could not quite shake the idea that she might be more badly hurt than he had suspected, that her recovery might be longer and more complicated than he had assumed, even with the assistance of the ice maidens, and, as she had ended up in that situation because of him, he could not help but think that maybe he was to blame for her suffering.

No, Hiei thought to himself, he was not to blame for what had happened to either Botan or himself: it was all Inukasai's fault. The sooner he could safely and comprehensively expose the faker as a fake, Hiei would delight in ensuring Inukasai's demise: either by a slow and painful death or by handing him to Mukuro. Just as Hiei was starting to enjoy that thought however, he sensed movement on the village path. He stood up and looked out through the snowstorm, seeing then that there were a series of shadows moving along the path towards him.

Why were there so many of them?

Hiei stepped up out of the hole he had created, readying himself for a confrontation: surely the young ice maidens who had taken Botan had reported to the elders that there was an emiko on the edges of their village and they were coming to see him off. He tensed – without letting his energy rise – in preparation for a battle of some kind, as he expected things to get ugly verbally if not also physically.

Hiei grunted out a noise of surprise and lost all focus when the group reached the point where he could see their faces, and he saw that the tallest of the group, leading the way towards him, was Botan.

She was inexplicably dressed the same as the other ice maidens – in one of the high quality but highly simplistic kimonos the ice maidens were so proud of making, that looked beautiful without looking flashy – and she was accompanied by five ice maidens, all younger than Yukina and including the two who had initially approached him on the passageway and taken Botan to the village. She looked slightly shifty, but despite that and in spite of the howling gales, snow and ice underfoot and the relentless snowfall, she was walking steadily and without any great effort, which at least meant that she was in better physical condition than she had been when they had first arrived at the ice village.

However, any relief Hiei had allowed himself to feel at seeing that the ferry girl would not suffer long term for what she had been through was short-lived as she suddenly broke into a run – or as close to a run as she could manage in deep snow and wearing a kimono – the look on her face suggesting to him that she was about to do something idiotic.

"Oh Hiei, my darling husband, I'm so relieved that you are alright."

Her tone sounded sarcastic, but her satire was the least of Hiei's concerns as she threw her arms around his shoulders and then groaned into his ear in a most unpleasant way.

"My shoulder still hurts, I shouldn't have done that," she mumbled into his hair.

Hiei peered over her shoulder as she continued to cling onto him, watching as the five ice maidens edged closer, looking back at him with a level of curiosity not normally displayed by such a detached race of demons.

"I had to tell them you were my husband," Botan whispered, her voice still aimed into his hair. "I didn't think you'd mind, because you told the dog demons I was your wife. Also, they kept asking about your penis."

Hiei stiffened, the curious way the ice maidens were regarding him suddenly seeming sinister.

"It's alright Hiei, I've told them you won't show it to them," the ferry girl added.

"Hn?" Hiei grunted angrily.

"It's none of their business, you're my husband, and I'm not the sharing type. Also it's humiliating for you – oh, not that I think you're ashamed of your body in any way – because you don't have any reason to be – not that I know – well, there was that one time during the dark tournament, but that was all Shizuru's idea, and I only caught the briefest glimpse and I thought it wrong at the time but sometimes I can't say no to peer pressure – I just meant that you're not some chunk of meat for them to ogle – not that I mean that your private parts are like a chunk of meat, I mean that you are like a chunk of meat – not like a chunk of meat, I mean – no, wait, I–"

"Botan?"

"Yes."

"Stop talking now."

"Okay."

Botan held onto Hiei for a little longer before gradually leaning back and sliding her arms from him. She gave him a wary, nervous look before turning to the ice maidens.

"Follow us," one of them said. "Try to stay close, the path can be dangerous to newcomers."

Hiei felt Botan take a tight hold of one of his hands and he vaguely wondered why: after all, she had managed the walk down the path unaided, and it was harder to descend the path than it was to ascend it. However, he was a little concerned about what she had said about the ice maidens wanting to see him naked, a concern backed up by the way the girls were still watching him, and so he kept a hold of her hand in the hope that they would leave him alone if they thought he was married.

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Hiei and Botan spend an awkward night in the ice village sharing a bed and pretending to be the married couple they proclaimed to be, followed by breakfast with Rui, who starts to tell them some conflicting information about Inukasai and Yukina. However, just when things start to seem hopeless for Hiei, Botan uses her meddling ways to save the day.** Chapter 12 – Freckle, Freckle**


	12. Freckle, Freckle

**A/N: **Thanks for the reviews, it's always nice to know people are still reading!

* * *

**Chapter 12 – Freckle, Freckle **

"Is there a reason you've assimilated?"

Hiei watched Botan expectantly from the corner of his eye as she tried not to look as guilty as she so obviously was.

"I woke up in these clothes," she whispered back to him.

Hiei tried not to think too much about that reply: both picturing it and imagining how awkward it must have been for the ice maidens was difficult.

"These girls are a little frisky."

Hiei had always hated the word "frisky", largely because there were so many possible definitions of the word, and none of them good.

"They're not really how I expected them to be."

Hiei grunted in frustration, watching an ice maiden hurry into her house fearfully as she sighted him and another young ice maiden cautiously move over to join the group walking behind him. He was not sure what the ferry girl had expected the ice maidens to be like – she had probably assumed that they were all like Yukina – but he could not ignore the fact that something in the ice village was different, even from since his last visit there when he had learned of his mother's death and Yukina's existence.

"They're very direct and blunt and not very aware of socially acceptable norms," Botan whispered.

"I'm aware of that," Hiei whispered back to her. "That was why I didn't bother killing them all when I found this place again: such unfeeling creatures aren't worth the effort."

Hiei tried to ignore the odd way the ferry girl was looking at him following his last statement, but when she started squeezing at his hand and making little sotto voce humming noises his irritation got the better of him and he looked up at her expectantly.

"Direct and blunt and not very aware of socially acceptable norms," she whispered as their eyes met.

"I heard you the first time," Hiei growled back. "I'm not deaf."

"But you said those were the reasons you disliked the ice maidens."

Hiei really did not understand why she was continuing to press the matter when he thought that his tone of voice and choice of words had made it clear to her that the conversation was over.

"And those reasons you gave are things that could be said to describe you too, Hiei."

Hiei bared his teeth at her, but she still looked more confused and curious than fearful.

"Maybe you inherited those qualities from your mother," she suggested.

"Maybe you should shut-up before someone overhears you."

Botan looked a little displeased with Hiei's response, but, to his relief, she did stop talking, she stopped pulling faces at him and she stopped trying to get his attention, which allowed him to concentrate on his surroundings. Something was definitely different in the ice village. It was not a massive change, but it felt significant despite its subtlety. It had only been a few years since Hiei had last visited the glacial rock that had been his birthplace, so for a change to have occurred in such a short space of time, something quite important must have happened; after all, from his birth to his return to the village – a time period of more than four decades – nothing had changed there. He had always thought that nothing ever would change about the place, that Yukina was the one exception, the only resident of the village who had somehow seen sense and decided to leave and make a better, more honest and braver life for herself; but the strangely confident girls walking around him contradicted that theory.

The girls around him were all very young – too young to remember or even have been alive when Hiei had been born – and so it was possible that their confidence stemmed from their ignorance regarding the potential for an emiko to be born into their clan. However, from the scant fragments of conversations he had overhead as an infant, combined with snippets of information he had overheard Yukina relaying to her female friends in the living world, Hiei had always believed that the elders of the ice village were always very strict with the younger residents, keeping them indoors more and secluding them even more than they secluded themselves, partly to keep them from getting into trouble and also to acclimatise them to a life of isolation.

And that, Hiei concluded, was the biggest reason why it was so odd that an ever-increasing number of young ice maidens were joining him as he passed through their home.

Hiei was glad when the ice maidens finally led him and Botan into a house – though he was less than pleased that the group who had been following them also entered the house – and he was away from the watchful eyes of those he had known would have been spying on him as he walked by.

"You can stay here tonight," one of the ice maidens said.

Botan turned to Hiei, giving him a look that he thought seemed inappropriate – despite going to the ice village having been her idea, she looked as though the last thing she wanted to do was stay the night there – but Hiei chose to ignore her.

"I won't share a room with so many others," Hiei said, sending a pointed look over his shoulder at the group of young ice maidens behind him.

"I understand," the ice maiden replied, bowing her head politely.

She began herding the others out of the house, despite some of them seeming very unwilling to leave, and as she did so, Hiei felt Botan tug on his hand with surprising strength. He turned to her, finding the look on her face even more desperate than before.

"We can't stay here!" she whispered urgently.

"We don't have any other choice," Hiei whispered back. "We'll get what we need in the morning and we can leave after that."

"You don't understand, it's Nanako, she's a… She's the one who keeps talking about your…"

Hiei frowned, waiting for the ferry girl to start making sense: but instead she gasped, her eyes moving to something behind him. He turned to see just one ice maiden remaining.

"My name is Nanako," she said as he looked at her. "I usually share this house with my friend Akutsu, but she's staying somewhere else this week, so you may take her room."

"We don't want to be a bother," Botan said, laughing nervously. "We can easily–"

"Where is your friend this week?" Hiei asked, his voice silencing Botan.

"She's staying in the temple," Nanako replied.

Nanako's answer was succinct enough for Hiei: the temple was the largest ice building in the ice village, located at the very centre of the village, and it was the place the women went to give birth. They had a tradition of gathering a group of around five women – including the one who was due to have her baby – each with different roles in the birthing ceremony, and they all spent upwards of seven days in the temple, not emerging again until the day after the baby was born. It was the closest thing the ice maidens did to having any sort of gathering or celebration.

"That sounds interesting."

Hiei gave Botan a hard look, hoping that she would retract her comment; but instead she kept her eyes on Nanako, her earlier concern suddenly replaced by the one emotion that over-rode all of the others she ever felt and that she seemed unable to control: curiosity.

"The temple is a sacred place for us," Nanako replied. "It's hard to explain it to an outsider: I suppose it's like your bedroom."

Hiei slowly turned his attention back to Nanako, finding himself almost as overcome by curiosity as the ferry girl was: he hoped her nosiness was not a contagious trait that he would contract by spending so much time around her.

"We go to the temple to welcome a new baby into our clan," Nanako added. "Like how you go to bed together every night and do things that make babies."

Hiei slowly moved his eyes back to Botan, surprised to find her already glaring at him with the sort of accusatory and irate look he had been about to direct at her.

"Akutsu's bed is really only meant for one, but it is big enough for two," Nanako continued. "I have heard that fornication can be quite loud, and you should know that not everybody in this village agrees with it, so try to be quiet."

Hiei, when he saw that Nanako was unwaveringly serious in everything she had just said – which, he noticed, she had said with alarming ease and more confidence than he could muster to talk about such matters – turned his attention to Botan again, finding her giving him one of her "I told you so" looks.

"Yes Hiei," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Nanako doesn't want to be kept awake listening to the sounds of our love-making, so you'd better keep all your moaning and groaning to a minimum. Think you can manage that?"

Hiei turned sharply back to Nanako.

"We need a moment alone," he said.

Nanako glanced back and forth between Hiei and Botan.

"You are ready to fornicate already?" she asked. "Even though Botan is still recovering from her injuries and Hiei just came in out of the cold? I have been told the cold causes the penis to shrink, doesn't that affect your ability to–"

"I need a moment alone with my wife right now!" Hiei roared.

Nanako bowed her head, her expression still entirely impassive, and held out a hand towards an open doorway. Hiei reaffirmed his hold of Botan's hand and dragged her after him as he stomped into the room Nanako had indicated, closing the door behind them and then rounding on Botan in his fury.

"What the hell is this?" he hissed.

"Your ancestors are all perverts Hiei," the ferry girl flatly replied. "Did you know that about them? It's no wonder poor Yukina didn't fit in here, she's nothing like that at all."

"No, you idiot, the ice maidens are not perverts obsessed with male anatomy they know nothing about!" Hiei retorted. "In fact, most of them never even think about men, let alone their bodies, and even fewer of them understand what the word "fornication" means!"

"I'm getting the impression that you think this is all somehow my fault," Botan replied, her tone inappropriately sardonic.

"It is your fault!" Hiei replied. "I left you alone with them for half a day – most of which time you probably spent unconscious – and look what you did to them! Why did you tell them I was your husband?"

"Why did you tell Inukasai I was your wife?"

"That was a completely different situation!"

"Yukina is a very traditional girl, with old-fashioned morals, and I thought the other girls here would be the same – I realise now how silly that was, but that's beside the point – and I didn't think they would approve of me staying here with you unless we were married. They were suspicious of you and they thought you were a spy spirit world had hired, and the only way I could convince them that you were not a spy and that you should be allowed to enter the village was to tell them that you were my husband!"

"Couldn't you have fabricated a more believable lie?"

Botan's jaw dropped as though Hiei had just said something shocking and offensive.

"Nobody would ever believe that a ferry girl would marry a demon, think about it!" he added.

"If that's the way you feel, why did you marry me in the first place?" she asked.

"It was the convenient thing to do at the time," Hiei replied through tightly clenched teeth.

"A marriage of convenience?" Botan echoed. "That's deplorable! I can't believe you only married me because it was convenient and because of my breasts!"

"Not this again!" Hiei groaned. "You know, most women would be pleased and take it as a compliment that men notice the size and shape of her assets."

"Shape? You said it was all about the size!"

"The things I'm saying to you are complimentary things: what is wrong with you that you are getting so offended by it?"

Hiei froze as he saw Botan flinch, her eyes staring at something to one side of her. He turned his head, growling in alarm as his eyes landed on Nanako, standing in the suddenly open doorway with a tray of tea.

"How long have you been standing there?" he demanded.

"I suppose this is what they call a "lover's tiff", yes?" she responded.

"How long have you been standing there, Nanako?" Botan asked. "Because it's actually very rude to listen in on other people's private conversations: especially if that conversation happens to be a lover's tiff!"

"That's rich, coming from you," Hiei growled at her.

"I didn't hear very much of your quarrel," Nanako said.

Hiei allowed himself to relax a little in relief: but his respite was mercilessly brief.

"But you are right about the size and shape of her breasts."

Hiei turned to Botan and arched his eyebrows.

"I didn't show them to her if that's what you mean!" she snapped.

"Wow."

Hiei and Botan both turned to Nanako at her unenthusiastic uttering.

"So what they say about married couples understanding each other without even needing to speak their thoughts is true," the ice maiden said, her tone no more impressed then before.

"You're not helping," Hiei told her.

"I thought I was," she replied, a vague hint of obstinacy entering her tone. "I've seen your wife naked. I undressed her to check the extent of her wounds."

"It was you who changed my clothes?" Botan said.

"Yes, it was," Nanako replied. "I did want to ask you once you were well enough: why are your breasts as large as they are?"

"What?"

Hiei suppressed the urge to grin: at least now the ferry girl was starting to feel as uncomfortable as he was.

"Is it something in your diet?" Nanako continued, oblivious as ever to her lack of social grace. "None of the women in our village are anywhere close to your size – one of the girls said it was because of your diet, another said it was because you're taller and your breasts are just proportionate for your height, but–"

"Other girls?" Hiei echoed.

Hiei tried to ignore the way Botan gave him an odd look following his outburst.

"I told them what I saw," Nanako replied. "Not that I needed to: it's obvious no matter what she wears."

"Yes, you're right," he agreed.

Hiei seriously began to wonder if Botan's bad habit of putting her foot in her mouth was catching, as even though he was typically quite tactless, he could usually at least keep his thoughts to himself.

"Shall I just leave the tea here for you?" Nanako offered, moving the tray towards the nightstand.

"Yes, that's fine," Botan answered her.

The ice maiden placed down the tray, bowed her head one last time and then left the room. Hiei waited until he was sure that she was out of earshot before turning to Botan.

"You need to come up with a less shallow reason for having married me than my bra size, Hiei," she warned. "Otherwise you'll be sleeping on the floor tonight."

Hiei narrowed his eyes, regaining some sense of self-control.

"First of all, we are not actually married," he said quietly. "Secondly, you should be flattered that everybody notices your womanly body – weren't you complaining earlier that you thought nobody found you attractive? And lastly, I will be sleeping on the floor tonight anyway, because of my first point, which was – since you seem to keep forgetting – that we are not actually married!"

"It's not fair that you got to tell the dog demons that you had a wife if I can't tell the ice maidens that I have a husband!"

"This isn't a competition or a game!"

"You hurt my feelings when you tell people you only married me for my chest!"

Hiei and Botan both paused, each noticing then that they were still holding hands.

"Let's just have some tea," Hiei suggested gruffly.

"Fine, but you have to sleep in that bed with me tonight."

Hiei, who had only just released Botan's hand, paused again to look her in the eye.

"What did you just say?" he asked.

"It's too cold here, my shoulder still hurts, and you're so warm all the time," she replied. "Also, I think Nanako and her friends might sneak in her during the night, and if we're not in the bed together they might get suspicious about our validity as a married couple."

"I don't care if they find out we're not really a married couple," Hiei pointed out.

"If the girls do sneak in here, they'll be doing it because they want to steal a look at the contents of your underpants."

"I'm sleeping on the left side of the bed."

"That's what I thought."

Botan moved over and began pouring some tea into the bowls Nanako had provided. Hiei looked over at the bed – which was really only big enough for two ice maidens the size of Nanako or Yukina – and then back at Botan.

"There's nothing sexual about us sharing a bed together, you understand," he said as she passed him a bowl of tea.

"Of course not," she replied.

"There's nothing sexual about me at all."

Hiei began sipping at his tea, only realising the error of his words when he noticed Botan staring at him curiously over her own bowl of tea. He turned his back on her in the hope that she would forget what he had said: but given her persistence to pry into anything and everything, he doubted he would be so fortunate.

* * *

Botan took a sip of her tea, surprised to find that it was quite fragrant. She had expected it to have been made from the plants in the ice village and to be bland in flavour, but it was either an imported blend or the plants in the ice village were more exotic than the norm for such a cold climate. She wondered if maybe the ice maidens had ways of growing plants intended for warmer climates: but she quickly pushed aside that thought as she saw Hiei twitch. He had turned his back to her, but that did not change the fact that he had just said something very unusual. In fact, she thought, it only made his words all the more suspicious.

At first, she had thought that he had misspoken in his anger, but he had done nothing to correct himself or retract his statement, instead turning away and pretending he had never said it. She was almost sure he had misspoken, as there really was no other logical explanation for what he had said, other than perhaps he was just really uncomfortable talking about his lovelife. She knew that, as his friend, she ought to leave him be if that were the case: but she could not help but wonder why someone like Hiei would be secretive about his romantic conquests. He was so confident about everything else in his life, and although he was perhaps not the sort for excessive affectionate gestures (like Kuwabara), he surely had plenty of experience with females. In fact, Botan thought as she sipped at her tea again, she had always suspected that a large part of why Hiei was so critical of Kuwabara's excessive romantic gestures was not because they were directed at Yukina – because after all, if Hiei really had disapproved of Kuwabara wooing his sister, he would have intervened by one means or another – but rather Hiei criticised it because he thought it ridiculous. Hiei was too cool to wear "the fighting headband of love" – probably yet another reason why Hiei hated Inukasai so much – and he was too cool to go over the top trying to impress a girl.

But it was still odd that he had specifically said the words "there's nothing sexual about me at all".

"I'm going to sleep now, you should do the same."

Botan watched Hiei replace his empty bowl onto the tea tray and then climb into the bed. It was quite a small bed – thankfully it was not a short bed, which was surprising, as all the ice maidens were quite short – and when Hiei lay down, Botan realised that she would be forced to lie quite close to him. She thought that maybe she should not have asked him to share the bed with her, but the alternative was waking in the middle of the night to find Nanako and her friends leering at Hiei as he slept on the floor, which was something Botan was as keen to avoid as Hiei was.

And so, after taking a deep breath and trying to think calming thoughts, Botan finished her tea and slid into the bed, positioning herself to lie as far away from Hiei as she possibly could without risking falling off the bed. He had at least lain down on top of the bedsheets, so it was not quite so intimate as she had feared it would be lying next to him; but a quick glance out the corner of her eye reminded her that he was still lying very close to her.

She closed her eyes and tried to relax: but it very quickly became clear to her that she would not be getting much sleep that night.

* * *

Botan flinched, her eyes snapping open. Nanako's expressionless face was starting to remind her of something from a horror movie, and waking up to find the ice maiden standing in the middle of the room staring at her was not the best start to the day that the ferry girl could have conceived of. The only thing worse than the way Nanako was standing perfectly still and staring silently at her was the way Hiei was glaring at her. Botan flinched again and then hurriedly retracted her arm, which had been draped over Hiei, pinning him onto the bed at her side.

"I didn't mean to interrupt," Nanako said.

"Yes you did," Hiei muttered moodily.

"Akutsu is still in the temple, but I managed to find someone else who may be able to help you."

Botan's concerns about the way Hiei was glaring at her vanished then: she had never actually told Nanako why she was visiting the ice village, so how had the ice maiden known who would be able to help them?

"When you're ready, I'll be waiting outside," Nanako continued. "I'll take you to the librarian. She'll serve us breakfast, and she should be able to help you with your mission for spirit world."

Botan relaxed slightly. Asking a librarian to help seemed like an innocent – and sensible – thing for Nanako to have done, even without knowing why Botan was in the ice village in the first place.

"Thank you, we'll be out shortly," Botan said to Nanako.

Nanako bowed her head and left the room. Botan waited until the door was shut before moving her eyes back to Hiei.

"Why were you touching me?" he asked the moment their eyes met.

"I didn't mean to!" Botan protested. "I must have put my arm over you in my sleep. Why didn't you move if you didn't like it?"

"I didn't like it!" Hiei hissed. "And I couldn't move, you put your left arm over me, I didn't know if moving either myself from under your arm or moving your arm from me would aggravate your wounded shoulder!"

"Oh, how considerate of you," Botan said, softening then. "See Hiei, you are a caring guy–"

"Don't think you can hug me just because we're pretending to be married," he cut her off.

Botan started to apologise but stopped suddenly, her eyes moving to her left hand.

"How was I able to put my left arm around you?" she asked.

"Because that's the arm you're not lying on right now," Hiei flatly replied.

"But that doesn't make any sense," Botan said.

"It makes perfect sense, you idiot!" Hiei growled. "You're lying on your right side, so your left arm is raised and able to reach over me, because I am lying on the right side of the bed!"

"You weren't lying on the right side of the bed when I fell asleep last night."

"That's not relevant to this discussion."

"You also weren't lying under the bed covers with me."

"That's also not relevant to this discussion."

"I think it is."

Hiei growled and a look almost akin to embarrassment fleetingly passed over his features.

"Alright, fine!" he growled, still keeping his voice low, presumably in case Nanako overheard them again. "You were moaning about being cold in the middle of the night and you said you wanted me closer because I was warmer than you. I moved under the covers to share my warmth with you."

"Okay…" Botan said slowly. "I don't remember saying that, but it does sound like something I might say, and it does explain why you're under the covers. It doesn't explain why we've swapped sides of the bed though."

Hiei grumbled something and then began wrestling his way out of the bed.

"What was that?" Botan asked as he finally leapt from the bed.

"I moved to let you lie on my side because I'd warmed it with my body."

Hiei had kept his back to her when he had answered, but even without seeing his face, Botan suspected that his reply did not tell her all the facts. She opened her mouth to question him further but stopped as he rounded on her suddenly, his face once more set into a more controlled – if mildly irritated – expression.

"Let's not waste any more time in here," he said sternly. "We don't want that entire troop of young girls back in here asking us unreasonable questions about parts of our bodies we'd rather not discuss."

Botan grimaced as she imagined Nanako and her friends crowding into the room and asking more intrusive questions with either no expression on their faces or a look of morbid curiosity. When Hiei started for the door she quickly scrambled out of the bed to follow him, noticing as she went that her shoulder felt a lot better: it was still sore, but she had regained a lot of mobility in her arm again. It still seemed strange to her though that she had managed to hurl her arm over Hiei in her sleep, as she thought that surely the pain in her shoulder should have woken her. She decided to quiz Hiei further on the matter later, focusing her energy in the mean time on huddling against the cold as they stepped outside to meet Nanako. Although Nanako's house had been built of snow and ice, it was still warmer than being out in the village itself, and Botan still shivered as she stepped outside. She watched Hiei – still without his scarf or cloak – walk onwards with his usual rigidly upright posture, apparently unaffected by the bitter, biting cold, and she could not help but feel impressed.

The walk to the librarian's house was mercifully short, and, upon arrival there, Botan ignored correct social protocol by walking straight into the house the moment the door opened. Once inside she relaxed a little and turned to watch as Nanako quietly said a few words to the woman who had answered the door – who, Botan noticed, was surprisingly taller than Nanako. The woman nodded her head and stepped back, and Nanako proceeded into the house, joining Botan in the hallway. Botan kept her eyes on the doorway, watching as Hiei paused to give the woman in the doorway an unusual look before continuing indoors. When he drew level with her, Botan could not suppress a smile as she noticed that Hiei's cheeks and the tip of his nose had been pinkened by the cold walk over; though when she saw the distinctly tense setting of his black eyebrows, barely visibly below his bandana, she decided against teasing him for it.

"This is our village librarian," Nanako said to Botan and Hiei as the librarian closed the door and started towards them. "Her name is Rui."

Hiei made a small noise that Nanako and Rui appeared not to have heard, but Botan had noticed it, and she knew Hiei well enough to know that he was either unimpressed or displeased by Rui's presence.

"It's nice to meet you," Botan said, bowing her head politely to Rui in the hope of diffusing any potentially difficult situation: if Hiei lost his temper and got them thrown out of the village they would never find out who Inukasai's mother was. "My name is Botan, and this is my husband Hiei."

Hiei made another noise, this time slightly louder, and clearly an expression of displeasure, but Botan ignored him.

"You seem familiar, Hiei," Rui said, narrowing her eyes slightly at Hiei.

Hiei turned his head from her slightly, but she remained unaffected, instead turning her attention to Botan.

"I was just preparing tea and soup, there's plenty if you would like to join me," she said.

"That would be lovely, thank you Rui," Botan replied.

Rui started through the house and Nanako followed her. Hiei made to begrudgingly follow on, but Botan grabbed his arm to stop him. He looked first at her hand and then her face, looking irritated by her disruption, but not as angered as she had expected him to be.

"How do you know Rui?" she whispered to him.

"It's not important," Hiei whispered back, tugging his arm from her hand. "Stop meddling."

Botan growled in frustration, but Hiei walked on and she was obliged to follow. However, Botan's frustration and her curiosity vanished as Rui led them to a table in a small kitchen and the smells of freshly brewed tea and warm soup reached her nose and she remember how hungry she was. She gladly sat down at one side of the table next to Hiei as Nanako sat across from her. Rui brought over a tray for tea – which Nanako set about preparing for all four of them – and then a pot of soup, a ladle, and four bowls.

"Rui holds all the records for our village," Nanako said as she passed a bowl of tea to Botan. "She will be able to tell you anything that you need to know."

"Oh that's good," Botan said, nodding sweetly at Rui.

Rui managed a small smile back, and Botan was glad to see it, as it was the first friendly gesture she had received from any of the ice maidens since arriving in the glacial village. Feeling then that Rui was a nice lady – perhaps more like Yukina – Botan tried to think of a tactful way to broach the subject of Inukasai's mother; but before she could even begin to find the right words, Hiei's voice cut into her thought process and left her wide-eyed and pale.

"You need to tell us why the emiko called Inukasai thinks Hina is his mother."

Botan had been sure that Hiei's blunt words – ironic after his criticism of the ice maidens for their frankness – would be the most shocking thing to happen over breakfast; but she then almost spilled the ladle of soup she had been pouring into her bowl as Nanako suddenly smiled in a genuine, non perverse, way and said something even more unsettling.

"You know the emiko Inukasai? Isn't he wonderful?"

Botan placed her bowl down onto the table a little harder than she had meant to, the soup sloshing over the edges of the bowl, and she sat back down, trying to hold in her gut response, which was to tell Nanako how horribly mistaken she was.

"How the hell do you know who Inukasai is?" Hiei asked her.

"Inukasai visited our village a few months ago," Nanako replied, apparently unfazed by Hiei's harsher tone. "He came looking for answers about his birth and his family."

"It's so strange that you know of him," Rui added, looking at Hiei as she spoke. "As you yourself are also an emiko."

Hiei turned to her sharply, as did Nanako, the former looking angry, the latter surprised.

"Surely you must have recognised him as such, Nanako," Rui said to the girl at her side. "All emikos look the same, after all. Don't you see how he resembles Inukasai?"

Nanako turned to Hiei, her nose scrunching slightly in an uncharacteristic expression of emotion.

"I suppose he has many of the same physical traits," she eventually admitted. "Though Inukasai was much fairer. He was taller, too."

Hiei growled and Botan quickly leapt in to stop him making another blunt outburst.

"Yes, well, the thing is, Inukasai has told us that his mother was an ice maiden named Hina, and that the ice maiden Yukina is his twin sister," she said.

Rui turned to Botan and again gave a small smile, only this time it was more wistful than welcoming.

"Yukina was one of the finest members of our society," she said quietly. "Even though it was for her own best interests that she left, she is greatly missed."

"Yes, Yukina is a sweet girl, and a very good friend of mine," Botan said.

"You know Yukina too?" Rui asked.

"Yes, I do," Botan replied. "And that's why we're really here. Yukina is very important to me – as my friend – and when Inukasai appeared – suddenly, and completely out of nowhere – and said that he was her brother, I had my concerns. I can't just let any old stranger waltz into that girl's life and tell her that he's the long lost brother she's been searching so long for unless I know that he is telling the absolute truth: and so here I am, to check the facts. You say Inukasai came here a few months ago? Did somebody here tell him that he was Yukina's brother?"

"Yes."

Botan took a tight hold of her bowl of soup and lifted it to her lips, sipping from it and slowly swallowing before answering, lest she snap at Rui for giving such a frustratingly short and vague reply.

"Somebody did tell Inukasai that Yukina was his brother?" she asked as she replaced her bowl to the table.

"Yes," Rui replied.

"Who told him that?" Botan asked.

"I did," Rui said.

Hiei made another growling grunt, sounding more angered than before, and so Botan sat forwards and pressed on before he lost his patience entirely.

"Why did you tell him that?" she asked.

"Because it's the truth," Rui replied. "Inukasai is Yukina's brother. He is the son of Hina, my good friend, who is sadly no longer with us."

Hiei growled unashamedly, making enough noise that even Nanako stopped eating her breakfast and turned her attention to him.

"Surely not," Botan said nervously, trying to keep her eyes on Rui. "Surely Inukasai is not Hina's son and Yukina's brother?"

"Yes, he is," Rui replied.

She looked quite sure of her answer – so sure that Botan began to wonder if Hiei had been lied to the first time he had visited the ice village in search of answers to his own heritage.

"Okay…" Botan said slowly.

"Did you also come here to learn the identity of your husband's mother?" Rui asked.

Botan glanced at Hiei, finding him glaring at her in a way that suggested he was almost willing her to spontaneously combust.

"No, that wasn't why we came here," she managed to say, her voice slightly higher in pitch as her nerves got the better of her. "But if you could tell us the name of Hiei's mother, that would be helpful."

"He's much older than Inukasai. Who was the last to give birth to an emiko before Hina gave birth to Inukasai?"

Hiei and Botan both turned to Nanako, pouting at her angrily, but she kept her eyes on Rui.

"Hiei probably doesn't know how old he is," Rui replied, drawing Hiei and Botan's attention to herself. "Most emikos don't: Inukasai only did because his father had raised him from birth. The best I can do to help you identify Hiei's mother is to show you the records I have on the emikos that have been born here, and perhaps you will see something familiar."

Hiei started to say something sarcastic but Botan quickly spoke over him, cutting him off.

"Yes, please show us your records, Rui!" she said urgently. "Thank you so much!"

Rui nodded and rose from the table before walking out of the room at a pace so slow it made even Botan grind her teeth impatiently. As they waited for her to return, Botan finished her breakfast – she did not know when she would next get a hot meal – Hiei sipped at his tea and Nanako eyed Hiei over in a way that was sure to eventually push him over the edge. When Rui finally returned Botan sighed in relief and Hiei groaned.

"This is all I have," Rui explained, holding up a very slim and disappointingly small brown envelope.

Botan's heart sank.

"And I'm not really sure how much help this will be," Rui added. "As I said, all emikos look the same."

She pushed the tray of tea aside and emptied out the contents of the envelope, arranging the nine pieces of paper out in front of Hiei and Botan.

"I'm sorry," she said as Hiei shot her a dark look.

Hiei scanned over the photographs Rui had placed on the table before thumping back in his seat.

"Hn, this is hopeless," he concluded. "What a complete waste of time."

"This one is Hiei, and one of these two is Inukasai," Botan said.

Rui, Nanako and even Hiei all sat forwards, their eyes studying the nine photographs of baby emikos more carefully.

"Idiot, you don't know what you're saying!" Hiei snapped after looking over the photos once more. "They all look exactly the same: they could all be pictures of the same damn infant for all anybody can tell!"

"These are photographs of each of the emikos that have been born here," Rui said. "We always take a photograph of them, but I agree, they are so similar we might as well be looking at nine photographs of one child."

"Well you're all the idiots, not me!" Botan snootily announced. "Because that picture is clearly Hiei. I'm not so sure about Inukasai, but I would guess one of those two."

Hiei opened his mouth in a sneering way that suggested he was about to call her an idiot again, but he paused, a strange look passing over his face.

"How do you know that one is me?" he asked Botan instead.

Botan reached over and picked up the photograph she had singled out, pointing at the baby's face.

"Isn't it obvious?" she said, turning the picture towards Hiei.

Nanako leaned over the table and Rui leaned forwards, both ice maidens trying to see what Botan was indicating.

"Go ahead and tell me," Hiei said, keeping his eyes on Botan.

"This baby is the only baby with a freckle on his face in the same place as you," Botan flatly replied.

Nanako and Rui leaned closer to the photograph and Hiei narrowed his eyes, one hand moving to his face, his fingers covering the exact point Botan had been referencing.

"See?" Botan said, smiling smugly. "Taking me here with you was the right thing to do, wasn't it Hiei?"

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Botan's cunning resolutely proves that Hiei is emiko number nine, but then Rui announces something that sets back Hiei and Botan's plans yet again, and the situation only gets worse when the subject of Hiei's father is raised and the spirit world liaison officer to the ice village enters the fray. **Chapter 13 – Burning Bridges**


	13. Burning Bridges

**A/N:** Tsuchigumo is a spider demon. Doro means mud/dirt. Kuro means black/dark. No foreshadowing there, then…

* * *

**Chapter 13 – Burning Bridges**

Hiei self-consciously brought up his hand, his fingers pressing against the small and slight bump by one corner of his top lip, silently wondering how the hell the ferry girl had noticed it there when he himself had to lean in close to a mirror and squint to see it clearly.

"See? Taking me here with you was the right thing to do, wasn't it Hiei?" the ferry girl said.

Hiei wanted to be angry, he wanted to tell her to wipe that self-serving smirk right off of her face, he wanted to tell her to stop noticing things about him that nobody else ever had – like how he was younger than Inukasai and that he had a tiny, faint freckle on his face – but it was difficult to argue with her when she was so undeniably right.

"Goodness, I see what you mean," Nanako said in her dull voice that was so typical of a resident of the ice village. "I suppose this must be Hiei then."

"Oh dear," Rui said, taking the picture from Botan's hand and turning it over to read something written on the back of it. "This is the picture of Hina's son – Yukina's brother – but… I was sure this was Inukasai!"

"Nope!" the ferry girl said.

She was looking far too smug, with her arms folded and her nose turned up in the air, her eyes closed and her smile positively obnoxious.

"How did this happen?" Nanako asked.

Hiei was glad someone else had asked the question, as he would not have been so polite had he been left to ask it himself.

"This is the ninth emiko born, the youngest of the group," Rui replied. "Inukasai was so young, I thought this was him."

"Inukasai is seventy-eight years old," the ferry girl said, her tone no less haughty.

"Then he is definitely not Hina's son," Rui said.

Botan finally opened her eyes and lowered her nose to an almost normal height, looking over at Hiei, her pink eyes glittering optimistically.

"This is awful."

Botan's smile vanished and she turned abruptly to Rui. Hiei thought that he really ought to intervene before the ferry girl made a fool of herself, but as he was not Rui's biggest fan, he decided to allow the chaos to continue a little longer.

"What do you mean?" she demanded. "How is this awful?"

"Because I told Inukasai that Hina was his mother," Rui replied. "And that wasn't the truth."

"No, that's not awful, that's fantastic," the ferry girl said.

"Poor Yukina," Nanako said.

Hiei turned to her, but she appeared to be oblivious to the fact that her remark was a slight against him.

"Inukasai was such a wonderful young man," Rui said.

"No he was not!" Botan argued.

"Yes he was," Nanako said. "He spoke to the elders, and they admitted that he was living proof that even a soul born as evil as an emiko could, under the right circumstances, evolve into something better."

The ferry girl turned oddly pale and became strangely quiet then, but Hiei was almost glad of it, as he did not especially want to listen to even the ice maidens singing Inukasai's praises, and the ferry girl's change in demeanour surely meant she would put an end to the conversation.

"That's true," Rui said. "Inukasai has given us all a lot to think about. Thanks to his charming repartee, the elders now allow the younger residents of the village more freedom."

Hiei was glad that Rui had made that last remark, as it did explain a lot – namely that the sick nonsense the ice maidens had suddenly starting talking about was a consequence of Inukasai sullying yet another group of people with his smarmy lies – but he intended for that to be Rui's last remark on the subject.

"You need to contact Inukasai and tell him the truth," he told her.

"It's so awful," she said. "I feel terrible that I gave him incorrect information."

"I thought you said you were Hina's friend?" Hiei responded.

"She was my closest friend," Rui replied. "I miss her terribly."

"Hn, some friend you are if you thought a dog demon was her son."

"A dog demon?"

Hiei sneered at Rui, but she appeared not to understand how ridiculous she was being.

"His name is Inukasai," Hiei pointed out. "Wasn't that a clue as to what sort of demon his father was?"

"The thought never occurred to me," Rui faintly replied.

"The thought never occurred to you that a demon with the word "dog" in his name might have been raised by dog demons?" Hiei spat.

"I was too fearful to discuss Inukasai's father with him," Rui replied. "It did surprise me when he said his father had raised him, however, as I don't recall Hina's lover being the type of man who would have wanted to raise the child they created together."

In all his years of searching for his missing hiruiseki necklace, the ice village, his mother and his sister, Hiei had never even thought about his father: he had assumed that the man had probably been killed by the other ice maidens after impregnating his mother, but, when he thought about how he had just left the village of Inugoya, where Inukasai had been raised by his father, he supposed he really ought to have given the matter more thought before.

"What sort of man was Hina's lover?"

Hiei was torn between the desire to kill the ferry girl for asking the question and the need to hear Rui's answer. Rui, as though sensing as much, looked over at Hiei, the look of pity on her face almost as bad as it had been right before she had thrown him from the cliff as a baby.

"He was one of the tsuchigumo, he hailed from the town of Doro," she said.

"Is he still there?" Botan asked.

"That's not relevant!" Hiei snapped. "We didn't come here to talk about that! We need proof that Inukasai isn't Yukina's brother, and we need it quickly!"

"I don't know," Rui said to Botan. "He wasn't really the sort to stay in touch with anyone."

Hiei growled in irritation. It was really of no interest to him whatsoever to find out that the man who had planted him into his mother was a spider demon from one of the sleaziest towns in demon world, and talking about it any further was now only detracting from the key point: Rui needed to correct her error and tell Inukasai that she had made a mistake and that Hina was not his mother.

"Do you remember his name?" Botan asked.

"Why would you even ask that?" Hiei growled at her.

"We could track him down," she replied, far too matter-of-factly for Hiei's liking, as though she was suggesting they have ramen for dinner instead of suggesting that they waste their time on something as absurd as trying to find the insect bastard Rui claimed was Hiei's father.

"We have precious little time to waste," Hiei warned her. "We are certainly not wasting any of it on something so futile and absurd."

"His name was Kuro."

Hiei froze.

"Did you ever meet him?"

"No. But Hina spoke of him."

"So do you know if he is still in the town of Doro?"

Hiei could barely hear the ferry girl continue questioning Rui. He was far too busy trying to pretend that his least favourite resident of the ice village had not just announced that Hina's lover – the man who was responsible for Hiei's creation – a man Hiei had to, under great duress, call his father – was Kuro the tsuchigumo of Doro. Hiei had never been to Doro – he had caught glimpses of it from afar during some of his patrols as part of the border patrol, but he had never had cause – far less the desire – to visit the town itself – but he knew enough of Doro to know that it had one of the largest populations of tsuchigumo in all of demon world; and so, had someone simply told him his father was a tsuchigumo of Doro, he could have spent years of further study trying to narrow his search.

However, Hiei did know one tsuchigumo of Doro by name, and that particular spider demon was one by the name of Kuro.

"I'm sorry, no," Rui said, shaking her head solemnly. "Although Hina was my best friend, I didn't share her secret desire for adventure. She had other friends who indulged that hobby with her, and only they may know something about Hiei's father."

Hiei flinched upon hearing Rui refer to Kuro as his father: it was a fact hard enough to try to process inside his own head, far less to have to listen to someone else – someone in the know, no less – state as a fact.

"Can you introduce us to someone who has met Kuro?" Botan asked.

"Doubt it," Nanako said.

"Why not?" Botan asked.

"They're all dead," Nanako flatly replied.

"What?" the ferry girl yelped.

"That's true," Rui confirmed. "Hina was part of a group within our village, a group of women who regularly defied the orders of the elders, and over the years they have, one by one, all perished; either through the dangerous places their own lifestyles led them to or through suicide."

"Oh my…" the ferry girl muttered into her sleeve.

"Hina wasn't the only woman in the group to birth an emiko, she was the third of the group to do so," Rui explained. "The seventh, eighth and ninth emikos born to our clan were all born within four decades of each other, and all to women who were part of that group."

"The seventh, eighth and the ninth? Hiei, do you know what that means?"

Hiei slowly moved his eyes to Botan, finding her looking at him with that unreasonably optimistic look she wore far too often. And, even though he did not answer her, she apparently thought that he cared what conclusion she had wildly leapt to, because she continued talking.

"That means one other emiko, Inukasai and then you were all born to a group of ice maidens who were close friends!" she prattled on. "Inukasai's mother was part of that group and a friend of your mother's!"

"You seem to think learning that should please me somehow," Hiei flatly answered her.

"It should please you, Hiei!" she replied, sounding a little irritated. "This means we can figure out who Inukasai's real mother is! Now we can go back and expose him!"

Hiei supposed that the ferry girl's words made sense and were even confirmation that their eventful trip to the ice village had not been in vain: and yet he was finding it difficult to feel anything but bitter and resentful and wholly unsurprised after learning that his father was Kuro of Doro.

"Rui: which other two women in that group gave birth to emikos?" Botan asked, turning her attention to Rui.

Hiei glanced at Rui; and although his glance was fleeting, it was more than enough for him to see the look in her eyes and to know what was about to follow. When he rested his eyes on Botan, he saw her mauve eyes wide and sparkling, her delicate lips slightly parted, her body leaned forwards, her hands grasping the edge of the table in anticipation. She was so incredibly naïve, Hiei could not decide if the quality was irritating in her or just pitiable. She had such an insatiable zeal to find the truth, he wondered how it was that she had lasted so long living in and working for spirit world, where truths were hidden all the time: especially from low-level workers like she was. Her persistence and can-do attitude had been surprisingly helpful up until that point, but Hiei felt that they had finally reached a point where her peppy approach was no longer effective. The ferry girl was about to fly straight into a brick wall of realism, the likes of which she may never have encountered before, and he found himself feeling a strange sense of regret that the cheerfully hopeful look on her face was about to warp into an expression of utter dismay.

"That's not something I can discuss with you."

Botan's mouth opened slightly wider and her eyebrows lifted slightly, her expression first moving into one of disappointment. Her eyes flicked between Rui and the table as Rui began gathering up the photographs of baby emikos and returning them to the envelope they had been stored in, her fingers gripping tighter at the table edge until the whites of her knuckles started to show.

"Wh-what do you mean?" she asked.

Botan sounded as though Rui's response had been the absolute last thing she had been expecting, despite it having been so obvious to Hiei. She obviously did not even know why Rui had said what she had, but Hiei already did, and he wondered how the ferry girl would react when she dug a little further and found out this latest truth.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss such private matters of my people with outsiders," Rui tightly replied.

"You just showed us all those photographs and told us about Hiei's father and all about Inukasai's visit here!" Botan protested. "What's changed that you won't talk any more?"

Rui closed the envelope and placed it on the table, pressing her hands against it and lifting her eyes to Botan. Hiei watched – with far more fascination than he would ever dare to admit to feeling – as Botan's lips and eyebrows began to quiver and her fingers slipped from the table edge, her hands balling into dainty fists.

"Hina was my closest friend," Rui replied, her tone duller than Hiei had ever heard it. "I made a promise to her that I would always protect Yukina and look after her best interests. I am also very fond of Yukina, and even if I had not made that promise to my dear late friend, I would still prioritise Yukina's happiness over all else."

"What are you talking about?" the ferry girl demanded. "You're not making any sense! I'm not asking you to do something that will hurt Yukina, I'm asking you to confess your error to her: what about that is so difficult for you to understand and carry out?"

"Inukasai is a good and true man," Rui said. "I don't have much experience of men, but I do have plenty of experience of seeing the damage so many of them are capable of causing, of the pain they are capable of inflicting upon the innocent."

"You're still not making any sense!"

"I'm happy that Inukasai is Yukina's brother and I'm happy they have found each other. I couldn't have asked for a happier outcome for either party."

"But Inukasai isn't Yukina's brother! Hiei is! It's all a lie! I'm just trying to get to the truth of the matter! Yukina, Hiei and even that nasty monster Inukasai deserve to know the truth!"

"Yukina and Inukasai deserve to be happy, and it seems to me that they are very happy right now."

"What are you…?"

A look of realisation very slowly crept across the ferry girl's face and Hiei was glad to finally see it. He had known, the moment he had seen the distinct change in Rui's expression, that the conversation would go the way it had: because Rui, just like Kuwabara, Kuwabara's sister, Kurama, Yusuke and even Yukina, knew that Inukasai was a better choice of brother for Yukina than Hiei was.

"A-are you…? But I can't believe you would… But it's not the truth!"

Hiei lifted his eyes as Botan shot out of her seat, the mounting anger and emotion in her face seeming entirely superfluous to him. Why was she getting so wound up about it? After all, it was hardly her problem.

"Besides," Rui said, keeping herself calm. "I can't leave this village."

"Then I will bring Inukasai and Yukina to you and you will tell them the truth!" Botan snapped back.

Rui shook her head.

"If you won't tell them the truth yourself, I will show them the truth!"

The ferry girl leaned forwards and made a genuine attempt to snatch the envelope of photographs from Rui – who deftly moved it out of her range without so much as blinking.

"Give me that!" Botan demanded.

"I can't do that," Rui said.

"What would you do with those pictures, anyway?" Nanako asked.

"Show them to Yukina!" Botan replied.

"That's not going to happen," Hiei said, standing up.

Botan turned to him, her chest heaving, her face red – possibly from the cold, but probably from the exertion of expressing her heated emotions – and her hands still formed into fists.

"The only thing you can prove with those photographs is which child is me," he reminded her.

"Yes, and on the back of the photograph of you, Rui has written that you are Hina's son: that proves that you are Yukina's brother!"

Hiei watched her carefully, waiting as patiently as he could for her to realise the flaw in her logic before he had to point it out to her. At first she remained fired up, but, after several seconds of looking into his eyes, she apparently began to understand the very obvious flaw in her plan.

"The only way we can use those photographs to prove that Inukasai isn't Yukina's brother is to show her that you are," she said flatly. "And we need to find a way to expose him as a liar without exposing your past."

"Exactly," Hiei confirmed.

Botan sighed. She looked genuinely defeated, which pleased Hiei, as he had been concerned that she would have then gone to the same place that Kurama surely would have under such circumstances and just told him to go ahead and tell Yukina the truth about his identity. However, the ferry girl seemed to genuinely respect his need to keep his identity a secret: perhaps from all the death threats he had issued her in the past when she had come dangerously close to verbalising the truth in Yukina's presence.

"You know, if you really think Inukasai is such a great guy, don't you also think his actual mother has a right to know him?" Botan tried, turning to Rui once more.

Rui gave the ferry girl a solemn look that she seemed not to understand: though once again Hiei already knew what his mother's miserable friend was thinking.

"You're wasting your time," he said, standing up from the table.

"Not necessarily, Hiei," the ferry girl replied, unfazed as ever. "Maybe if Inukasai's mother knew about the lies Rui is encouraging, she might have something to say about it! She might even be willing to help us out with proving Inukasai isn't Yukina's brother!"

"That's not going to happen," Hiei said.

Botan rounded on him, giving him the same pouting scowl she had been aiming at Rui only moments earlier.

"Inukasai's mother is dead," he explained.

"How do you know?" she asked, her face relaxing slightly.

"They're all dead, remember?" Hiei told her. "If their sons didn't kill them, the elders did, or else they killed themselves – either intentionally through guilt and shame or unintentionally in an attempt to recover the children they allowed to be left for dead."

Botan slowly turned to Rui, finally seeming to understand the look the ice maiden gave her as she sighed.

"We came all this way!" she moaned. "We can't leave empty-handed! We were so close!"

She was fighting a losing battle, but Botan's words did make Hiei wonder what he should do next: his choices seemed to be limited to returning to Mukuro and trying to ignore his problem or else going to the living world and confronting it, and neither option was particularly appealing. He had been sure he would have to do one or the other, but the last few days running around with the overly enthusiastic ferry girl had helped him forget that fact. It was almost as if some of her insatiable optimism had started to rub off on him somehow.

"Let's go," he said.

Hiei moved away from the table, only stopping when he reached the doorway. He paused there, watching over his shoulder as Botan stepped back from the table and then fixed her eyes onto Nanako.

"I want my belongings back before we go," she said.

Nanako nodded and stood up from the table.

"Thank you for your help," she said to Rui.

"Yes Rui," Botan said bitterly. "Thanks for nothing!"

Botan then stomped over to join Hiei in the doorway, her face twisting in a way that almost made her look like someone worthy of being taken seriously.

"What happened to your hair, anyway?" he asked her.

Her face dropped, and she once more looked like herself.

"You only just noticed?" she wailed.

"Yes," Hiei flatly replied. "And now I really wish I hadn't bothered saying so…"

"They cut off all my hair!" she continued regardless. "They did make me this lovely kimono, but it was so unnecessary to cut off all my hair the way they did!"

"They probably did it out of spite," Hiei muttered. "They say they don't care about physical beauty, that women only care about such things because of the influence of men, but they consistently contradict that with random acts of jealousy."

"…What?"

Hiei looked directly at Botan, the surprised and slightly embarrassed look on her face making him realise his second mistake of that conversation: it was bad enough that he had just basically told her that the ice maidens had cut off her hair because they were jealous of her beauty, but the error was surely only magnified by her apparent recent obsession with her own attractiveness.

"I said the ice maidens are expert seamstresses," he said. "They can sew together an outfit with great speed. They use the skill to create fine outfits that they then trade for food when they do leave the village."

To his relief, the ferry girl became suitably distracted by his words.

"They trade goods?" she asked. "But isn't all the currency in demon world just hiruiseki? They don't need to make anything to trade, they just need to cry."

"They don't like that their tears are used as money," Hiei pointed out. "They prefer to trade goods."

"I see… That still doesn't explain why they cut off my hair though…"

Hiei chose to ignore the ferry girl, as talking any more would probably only lead to him saying something else she would make him regret later. He continued out of Rui's house with the intention of heading back to the path out of the ice village: but he stopped short a few steps out of the house as the ferry girl turned in the opposite direction from him and marched across the village square with a strange sense of purpose. Hiei paused, looking about himself at the murky outlines of ice maidens watching him curiously from a distance through the mist, before turning his attention once again to Botan, watching her in a state of unending bemusement as she took herself back to Nanako's house and barged through the front door. The sensible thing in Hiei's mind seemed to be to wait for her to return; but when he saw a flicker of movement on the edge of his vision his head snapped around and he saw something that soon started him moving towards Nanako's house.

The leader of the ice maidens, along with a few others, was exiting the temple.

* * *

Botan kicked aside an artistically woven wicker footstool and glowered around the living room of Nanako's house. The room was what most people would probably describe as, but as the room was – much like everywhere else in the ice village – at a sub-zero temperature, it was anything but cosy to Botan. Her frustration was mounting and she was unsure what was bothering her the most: the cosy attitude of the ice maidens, the fruitlessness of her (frankly quite difficult) journey to the ice village, the nagging feeling that she might never prove Inukasai's words to be lies or the fact that, once again, she had visited a village in demon world and had her belongings taken from her. Nanako's house was small and the décor was extremely minimalist, and therefore there were few places Botan's belongings could be hidden, and yet still she could not find a trace of her clothing or her bag. She dropped onto all fours and peered under a low bench – despite having already checked twice – and then stood up again, her face level with a small rounded window glazed with ice in place of glass.

Botan paused as she noticed Hiei standing in the centre of the ice village, facing a group of ice maidens. The confrontation looked interesting and her instinct was to move closer to the window to try to hear anything being said or else to abandon the search for her belongings and just go out and join Hiei: but instead of doing either, she once more dropped onto all fours, her heart racing and her breath condensing in the air around her in rapidly repeating clouds. She held her position until her initial moment of panic had passed before slowly and silently rising up to an awkward half-crouch, bringing her eyes just high enough that she could see out of the window. And, as her eyes once more landed on Hiei and the group of women standing before him in the village centre, Botan found her desire to listen in to what was being said evolve into a need to know what was being said. She was only curious about what the ice maidens and Hiei might have to say to each other, but she needed to know what the spirit world liaison officer might say to either group.

As she watched on, Botan wondered if she really ought to be concerned or not about the spirit world liaison officer seeing her in the ice village: after all, Koenma has instructed her to follow Hiei wherever he went, and it would appear that she was only doing just that. However, she was concerned that the liaison officer might say something to her in Hiei's presence that would alert Hiei to the fact that Koenma had instructed her to follow him wherever he went, and the last thing she needed was the complication of trying to explain to Hiei that she was with him as his friend and not as his spirit world appointed stalker.

But the liaison officer may just be able to shed more light on Inukasai's true identity, and that was too good an opportunity to miss, even if it had come at the expense of potentially revealing details of Koenma's experiment to Hiei.

Pushing aside her panicked concern, Botan drew in a deep breath and turned from the window, hurrying out of the little snow house. She winced against the biting cold outside of the house – something she kept forgetting about, as the interior of the houses in the ice village were colder than any weather she had ever experienced before, and so it seemed impossible for the temperature to drop any lower outdoors – and she started towards Hiei.

"I am only allowing you a safe exit from our village because recently I have come to realise that maybe our judgement of the emikos has been overly harsh," a wizened old ice maiden was saying to Hiei as Botan stopped by his side. "I still maintain that men are not welcome here, that men bring only destruction and that any emikos born here must be cast out: but I am willing to reconsider how we cast the emikos out. And that includes you, boy."

"Hn, you waste your breath, you miserable old hag," Hiei answered her. "I have no desire to stay here. Casting me out was the best thing you ever did for me."

"Inukasai said exactly the same thing to me."

Botan started to get angry upon hearing the old ice maiden mention the name of her least favourite emiko, but her anger was quickly surpassed by concern when she noticed the tension in her favourite emiko's face.

"Say that again," Hiei said quietly.

"Another of your kind visited us recently," the old ice maiden continued. "An emiko named Inukasai. He was the son of Hina, one of our more troublesome former residents, but he proved to us all that even a wretch born as horrid as he was could become something far better."

Hiei snarled and Botan caught the spirit world liaison officer looking at her. It had been a long time since Botan had actually seen the officer, but in that moment she could understand why Koenma had chosen her for the role she now had: she was small with delicate features, pale lilac hair and light steel-coloured eyes, and, dressed in a kimono that had clearly been made in the ice village, she was visually indistinguishable from the other ice maidens around her.

"What do you mean "former resident"?"

Hiei glared up at Botan and she met his eyes with a look of confusion, since even she did not know why she had asked the question she just had: of everything she had witnessed since her arrival in the ice village and of every damning thing the old ice maiden had just said, why had her mind locked onto those two words?

"Who are you?" the old ice maiden asked.

Botan turned to her and gulped nervously. She took a moment to consider the malevolent glare the elderly ice maiden was giving her, the almost literal burning sensation of Hiei's mounting rage at her side and the suspicious, almost accusing, way the spirit world liaison officer was watching her. Applying the analogy of feeling like a spark in a powder keg seemed almost too ironic, as Hiei was likely to quite literally explode in a burning inferno if something pushed him too far. Hiei's temper was one of the most powerful things Botan had experienced; but it was not quite as powerful nor quite as influencing as her own curiosity.

"You said "former resident"," she said, her voice small and uneven, but her determination unwavering. "You made it sound as though you cast Hina out of the ice village. Is that true?"

"Hina wasn't cast out, she killed herself," Hiei said harshly.

Botan turned to him, but was surprised to find that he was not addressing her.

"At least, that's what Rui told me the last time I came here," he added, fixing his eyes onto the elderly ice maiden before him.

"The fate of any resident of the ice village – former or current – is not your concern," the ice maiden replied.

"Wrong answer," Hiei warned.

He moved his hands to his sword and Botan quickly grabbed at his arm nearest her. Although he did not drop his stance he did pause, moving his eyes to her in a way that seemed to be warning her to release him. She kept her hold of him and gave a small shake of her head before pointing at the figure approaching from behind them both. Botan watched Rui expectantly, hoping that the willowy ice maiden's conscience had finally got the best of her and that she was about to do something useful, that she was about to explain what Hina's fate had actually been or to explain the misinformation she had been spreading about Hina's relation to Inukasai.

"I believe this is yours."

Botan's face dropped as Rui held out her bag towards her.

"That's it?" the ferry asked in a low voice.

"We put your clothes in there," Rui added.

Botan slowly accepted the bag from her.

"Don't you have anything else you'd like to say to us?" she pressed.

Rui returned her question with a blank look and Botan began to feel herself getting as irate as she knew Hiei already was. She began to understand why he despised the ice maidens and their homeland so much and she began to appreciate why he said Yukina was better off away from the glacial village.

"I still don't know who you are, girl."

Botan turned back to the elderly ice maiden, who appeared to be addressing her. Her instinct was to give a haughty reply and demand answers again, but she stopped short of doing so when she noticed the way the spirit world liaison officer was still watching her.

"It's not your concern who she is," Hiei said when Botan did not answer the elderly ice maiden.

"She's this emiko's wife," Nanako offered. "Apparently."

Botan gave Nanako a dark look, silently wondering when the interfering ice maiden had joined their gathering.

"Wife?"

Botan turned back to the spirit world liaison officer, who had been the one to speak. The horrified look on her fellow spirit world resident's face made Botan realise that her already tense and confusing situation had just become infinitely more awkward: what if the liaison officer reported back to Koenma that Hiei had referred to her as his wife? Botan tried to stop herself from imagining Koenma's response – because, without hearing her opinion on the matter, he would have no reason to think the news was anything other than fact – and she instead told herself that she needed to find a way to subtly convey to the liaison officer that she was not really Hiei's wife.

"Where's Akutsu?" Nanako asked.

"Be quiet, girl!" the village elder snapped at her.

"If that's how people around here answer simple questions, it's no wonder nobody gets their facts straight…" Botan grumbled.

A moment after the words had left her lips Botan felt the air get distinctly colder – despite how impossible that seemed – and as she turned her attention fully towards the elderly ice maiden, she briefly saw the ice demon's eyes glow white before she suddenly found herself airborne. Botan started to cry out in fear and alarm, but stopped short as she landed on her feet, suddenly at the other end of the village centre and more than thirty feet away from the village elder. Looking back at the point where she had been standing she saw a disturbance on the snowy ground, and looking at her side she saw Hiei standing looking back over one of his shoulders. She leaned to one side to find out what had caught his attention, finding a glistening blue streak down his back and over one hip. She quickly moved back to the position she had landed in and Hiei turned to her, their eyes meeting.

"What just happened?" she asked.

"Your curiosity just almost got you killed," he flatly replied.

Botan looked back over at the gathering of ice maidens in the village centre, her mind slowly piecing together what appeared to have happened: apparently the village elder had lost her temper and launched an attack at Botan in response to her insolent remark – probably it was an insult that was a little too close to home for the deceitful ice maidens, Botan thought to herself – and Hiei had both taken the force of the attack upon himself and lifted her well out of harm's way.

"Are you okay?" she asked Hiei.

"Ridiculous question," he grunted.

She felt a small and brief flare of demon energy from him and the ice covering his hip and back evaporated.

"Obviously the old hag forgot why she cast me out in the first place," he continued, his tone rising as he turned towards the ice maidens. "It was because I have the ability – and the desire – to turn this entire miserable frozen rock into a steam cloud."

"Um, Hiei?" Botan began as she noticed the almost admonishing way the spirit world liaison officer was looking over at her.

"You should stand clear."

"Hiei!"

Botan had cried out to Hiei with the intention of trying to stop him from acting irrationally, but she made no attempt to physically try to stop him when he started to power up, instead summoning her oar and diving over the nearest cliff edge to escape harm. She landed onto her oar and kept falling, only realising her mistake when she halted her descent and tried to fly back up to the mountain pathway to the ice village, whereupon she realised that the damage her oar had sustained earlier had left it difficult to fly smoothly. After a juddering struggle back up, Botan met back up with Hiei at the end of the pathway furthest from the ice village, where she was glad of the deep snow as it softened her slightly heavy landing. She banished her oar and looked over at Hiei expectantly.

"They said they wanted to be isolated from everyone else, but clearly they can't even obey their own rules," he said.

"So you literally burned the bridge to the ice village?" Botan flatly asked, waving a hand at the gap at her side.

Where there had once been a narrow icy pathway to the ice village there remained only a flurry of hail. Hiei had apparently vaporized the bridge over the chasm between the mountain and the ice village, but due to the cold temperature in the air, the steam had quickly condensed into water droplets that had then frozen into small ice particles that were falling like hail.

"Was that supposed to be your witty way of metaphorically saying I just ruined my chances of being welcomed back into the ice village with open arms?" Hiei asked sarcastically.

"I don't completely disagree with you, Hiei," Botan replied. "They were being frustratingly uncooperative, but we could have got more information out of them if we'd waited a little longer."

"Waited for what?" Hiei spat. "For Inukasai to pay his next visit here? Because they would welcome him back with open arms, despite him being everything they hate."

"Only because he's used his sleazy lies to brainwash them the same way he did with Yukina and Kuwabara!" Botan agreed.

"We're losing time standing here talking about it, we should try to get as far down the mountain as we can and then rest for the night."

"But tomorrow is Tuesday already!"

"Yes, which means you have three days left to convince Yukina that you are not the horror Inukasai has told her you are."

"Exactly, I only have three days left to – wait, what did you just say about Inukasai miscalling me to Yukina?"

Hiei visibly faltered and Botan's jaw dropped.

"When did that happen?" she asked.

"It's not important, forget I said it," Hiei mumbled.

"It most definitely is important, tell me!"

"No. Oh look, here comes one of your comrades."

"Stop trying to distract me and answer the question, Hiei!"

"I'm not trying to distract you. One of your colleagues from spirit world is approaching."

"That's not funny Hiei! I know what you're doing! You're trying to make me look away so that you can run off and not have to answer me!"

"Hi Botan."

"Not now, can't you see I'm busy-ah!"

Botan almost fell off the edge where the ice path had once been as she fearfully leapt away from the ferry girl floating above her head.

"I've been watching you since you got here, I thought we should talk," the ferry girl said.

Botan took a wary step back as her fellow spirit world resident landed delicately on the snowy mountaintop.

"Don't look so worried," she said when she noticed the way Botan was staring at her. "I'm not here to cause you trouble. I came to give you some information to help you on your mission."

Botan slowly looked back over her shoulder at Hiei.

"Your mission?" he asked in a low voice as she met his eyes.

How was she going to explain to him about the mission Koenma had sent her on without him thinking that she was only at his side because she was obeying an order to spy on his pain and suffering?

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Botan and Hiei have an awkward (but informative) discussion with the ferry girl during which Botan finds a reason to convince Hiei to journey on to another little part of his past in demon world with her. On their way, they discuss why Inukasai's mother would have chosen Inuyusha as her lover and Hiei and Botan find themselves disagreeing on the definition of the word love. **Chapter 14: Ferry Girl's Choice.**


	14. Ferry Girl's Choice

**Chapter 14 – Ferry Girl's Choice**

Hiei waited for the ferry girl to answer him, but instead of saying even a single word, she turned her head from side to side, looking back and forth between him and her fellow ferry girl.

"I hope you can forgive my intrusion," the new ferry girl said. "But Lord Koenma did tell me about your–"

"Oh my goodness!" Botan yelled far too loudly. "I had no idea that you could fly an oar!"

The ferry girl tilted her head to one side, giving Botan a strange look.

"Well, yes, I was a ferry girl before I became the liaison officer to the ice village."

The short ferry girl's intrusion suddenly seemed like far less of an irritation to Hiei: he remembered Botan telling him about spirit world having a liaison officer who knew intimate facts about life in the ice village and so maybe their visit there had not been so pointless as it had seemed.

"You're the spirit world liaison officer to the ice village?" he asked.

The officer nodded her head. She was virtually expressionless, short, pale and had an air of snootiness about her: she was an obvious choice for an ambassador to the ice village as she was visually indistinguishable from the other ice maidens.

"Then maybe you can explain why that bastard Inukasai is pretending to be Yukina's brother," Hiei said.

"I'm afraid there isn't really very much I can tell you about Inukasai," she replied, much to his chagrin. "Other than the fact that he has made quite a startlingly positive impression on the ice maidens, there is nothing else I know of him: I have never met him personally."

"Then you are of no use to us," Hiei responded.

"Don't dismiss me so hastily, Hiei," she said. "I may not have been in the glacial village when Inukasai visited, but I was there when you visited."

Hiei bit back the urge to punch the spirit world liaison officer in the face: he was still vaguely optimistic that she might be able to tell him something useful, though as she was from spirit world, that was also doubtful.

"I haven't been in my post as liaison officer long enough to have witnessed any of the emikos being born, but I do know a little about the mothers of each of the boys," she continued. "I couldn't say for certain whether your mother was Hina or one of the other ice maidens in her group, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that there was a group of ice maidens who actively sought to learn about life outside of the village – or more specifically, they wanted to learn about men. Most of them ended up with child as part of their endeavours. Hina was one of that group."

"Do you know what happened to Hina?" Botan asked.

She cast Hiei a quick nervous look as though she sensed how much he had disliked her interruption.

"I only ask because Hiei was told Hina took her own life," she quickly added. "But back in the village there, that older ice maiden said that Hina was a "former resident", as though she had left the village rather than died?"

The liaison officer nodded and Hiei once more found himself interested in what she had to say: maybe Botan's meddling could be useful sometimes, as the questions she was asking – as intrusive as they were – were actually getting results.

"From what I have been told and from the accounts of the events that I have read in the records kept in the ice village, Hina did leave the ice village after the birth of her son," the liaison officer said. "Apparently she had always planned to do so. She wanted to birth her children in the village because she hoped the elders might change their minds about casting out her boy after they saw him: but she had planned that if they cast him out, she would take her daughter and leave to find her son and her lover, and that they would live together as a family."

The shuddering little whimpers the ferry girl was making quite nicely summed up how Hiei was feeling, and he assumed that she was reacting the way she was because she had come to the same conclusion as he had: the story the liaison officer had just told of Hina planning to leave the ice village to raise her children with her son's father matched the story Inuyusha had given about his own lover from the ice village. Despite the progress they had appeared to make in the library when Rui had produced the photos of the infant emikos, Hiei felt as though that had been a mere blip, an error of some kind, and that they were back to the same horrid place they had been in since Inukasai's arrival in Yukina's life: all signs were pointing at Inukasai actually being Yukina's brother and Hina's son.

"The women of the ice village who were in the group were all of a certain character," the liaison officer continued. "They were all – in varying degrees of intensity – girls who were bored and resentful of the life of solitude and modesty they had been born into, and, due to either their lack of experience socialising with others outside of their own clan or due to their general desire to find adventure, they all ended up in the arms of men who were far less than savoury."

"Like Inuyusha?" Botan asked quietly.

She had been looking at Hiei when she spoke, as though she was asking the question of him, but, much to Hiei's relief, the liaison officer answered anyway.

"Inuyusha was the mildest-mannered of them all," she said. "The worst was of course Kuro."

Hiei flinched upon hearing that name again.

"So… What happened to Hina after she left the village?" Botan asked.

Hiei barely so much as blinked at the sound of her asking yet more prying questions: after all, her last question was at least moving the conversation away from discussing Kuro.

"She must have returned," Botan continued. "Because you said she planned to leave with her daughter, but Yukina has no memories of having ever left the village before she began her search for her brother, so Hina's excursion must have been brief, and when Yukina was still just a young baby."

"I imagine Yukina has no memories of it because Hina left without her."

Hiei froze.

"Wh-what did you just say?" Botan asked.

"Hina left without her daughter Yukina."

The liaison officer had repeated her words as flatly and matter-of-factly as she had said them the first time around. It was honest, but so brutally so, that again Hiei understood why she had been chosen as the spirit world correspondent to the ice village.

"No…" Botan said slowly. "That can't be right…"

"It is though," the liaison officer replied, as bluntly as ever. "The elders of the village wouldn't allow Hina to take Yukina with her when she declared her plan to leave. She tried to fight the case, but eventually she left anyway. I've been told she left with the intention of finding her son and her lover and then returning with them both to take Yukina by force. Things didn't quite work out that way for Hina, however."

"She never found her son," Hiei said.

"Right," Botan said with a nod of her head. "And then she killed herself because of the despair she felt, right?"

"Hina didn't kill herself," the liaison officer said. "Why do you keep saying that she did?"

Botan turned fearful mauve eyes to Hiei, who simply looked back at her, genuinely at a loss of how he should react or what he should say.

"We were led to believe that Hina killed herself," she eventually recovered, turning back to the liaison officer as she spoke. "Is-isn't that what happened?"

The liaison officer shook her head.

"Hina was murdered," she said. "The only reason she was buried in the ice village is because her best friend Rui – who, even though she was Hina's best friend, wasn't a part of the group of women who sought out men and trouble – travelled to the place Hina was slain and carried her body back to the village. The elders told Rui if she did that they would concede to allow Hina to be buried in their graveyard. They didn't think Rui would have the physical strength to perform the task nor did they think she would have the resolve to complete the task, as, even though she secretly supported the girls who sought to learn about life outside of the village, Rui herself was always terrified of anything from outside the confines of her glacial home."

"Why would someone murder Hina?" Botan asked. "I-I only ask because surely an ice maiden is worth more alive, producing hirui stones for a captor. I would have thought she would have been more in danger of being abducted and tortured than murdered?"

"After she left the village, Hina tried to look for her son first of all," the liaison officer replied. "When she didn't find him after days of searching, she set out to find her lover. She duly did find her lover and she explained to him what had happened and about the powerful child they had created together. His reaction to the news was to kill her and then hunt down the boy himself. Once he found the boy he used him as payment to a group of bandits in return for an estate the bandits had recently taken over."

"He-he didn't keep his son and raise him as his own?" Botan asked faintly.

"No," the liaison officer said. "But then again, Kuro really wasn't the sort of man to want to do such a thing."

"Are you saying Kuro is the father of Hina's son?" Hiei asked.

"Yes," the liaison officer said.

"Well that proves that Inukasai isn't Yukina's brother!" Botan said.

She sounded – and indeed even looked – quite pleased with herself, as though the piece of information the liaison officer had just imparted was somehow a good thing. A small part of Hiei acknowledged that Botan was right that what the liaison officer had just said did disprove Inukasai's alleged relation to Yukina; however what the liaison officer had just said did also prove that Kuro was Hiei's father.

"Isn't that why Inukasai is such an interesting case, Botan?"

Botan turned exceptionally – almost suspiciously – pale as the liaison officer turned to address her directly.

"He is the only emiko whose father was not entirely evil, meaning genetically speaking, he was at an advantage to be a better man," the liaison officer continued. "And as he was also raised by his mild-mannered father and the humble dog demons, he is the product of a positive environment too. He has been fortunate from the nature end of the argument as well as the nurture end: unlike Hiei here, who has been incredibly unfortunate from both ends of the argument."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Hiei growled. "Don't you dare presume to know me just because you've spoken to Rui or any of the other myopic bitches of that frozen place."

"I know your father was Kuro and you were raised by bandits," the liaison officer replied. "So genetically speaking you are–"

"You're being rude!" Botan yelled out suddenly, her voice once more unnecessarily loud.

She was making a fool of herself, but Hiei was once again glad of her interruption, as he had not especially wanted to listen to the liaison officer tell him something he already knew; or worse still, to have the liaison officer reveal any more about his life to Botan.

He was almost certain that if Botan knew who Kuro was or if she learned anything about the bandits who had raised him, she would not feel nearly as comfortable about calling herself his friend and travelling around demon world so candidly with him.

"Look, I'm just trying to help you," the liaison officer said, turning her attention back to Botan. "I thought it might help you to know a little more about Hina, like the fact that she was part of a group of like-minded ice maidens."

"Who are all dead," Hiei flatly answered her.

She turned towards him upon his remark, and yet again he was struck by just how visually similar she was to the ever-unfeeling ice maidens themselves.

"Yes, that's true," she confirmed. "They are all dead."

"Including Inukasai's mother?" Botan asked.

"They're all dead," the liaison officer flatly replied. "But that's not to say there is not another group of such girls forming amongst the younger generation of ice maidens. A group spear-headed by Nanako, who I believe you both may have met during your brief visit to the ice village."

"Why are you telling us all this?" Hiei asked her.

The monotonous sound of her dull voice was starting to bother his ears and her uncanny resemblance to his ancestors was starting to make him wish she was not able to fly on an oar, as she was standing just close enough to the edge of the sheer drop that he could easily knock her over the edge in a way that would look accidental to even the most observant of eyes.

"Because I'm trying to help Botan on her mission," she replied.

Hiei glanced at Botan and again she looked incredibly guilty, which could only mean that she had told Koenma that she was going to demon world to uncover Inukasai's true identity. He was a little irritated to know that she had told Koenma about their plans and that the liaison officer kept referring to them as the ferry girl's "mission", but he reasoned that she would have needed to give her boss some sort of excuse for her absence, and he had no doubt pressed her for an answer after she had been rummaging around the spirit world files on the ice village, and so he decided not to admonish her for telling her colleagues in spirit world about her plans.

"How very gracious of you," he instead said, turning his remark to the liaison officer and hoping that, despite her impassive expression, she could hear and understand his sarcasm. "But exactly what are we supposed to do with the few – mostly useless – snippets of information you've told us?"

"I'm trying to tell you that if you're looking for answers about Hina, you should check with one of her friends who shared her interest in men," the liaison officer replied.

"One of her dead friends, you mean?" Hiei bluntly responded.

"Yes," she said.

Hiei sighed and turned his attention to Botan, finding himself suddenly looking at her in a renewed light: whereas she had always seemed like nothing more than a hapless soul collector and messenger, she suddenly appeared to be the most competent, most helpful and most personable creature to ever have emerged from spirit world.

"Let's go," he said to her.

She nodded and he turned to go, only hesitating when he heard the ferry girl's voice talking softly behind him, her words almost lost in the howling gales.

"Were you really a ferry girl before you became the liaison officer?" she asked.

"Yes," the liaison officer replied, making no attempt to lower her own voice.

"So it is possible for a ferry girl to get promoted to another role in spirit world?"

"Yes."

"I see… Were you chosen for your role as liaison officer for any particular reason?"

Hiei grunted, his face twisting. Perhaps he had given the ferry girl more credit than she deserved after all: surely only an idiot would need to ask such a question.

"Did you have to pass any sort of test or carry out any sort of special duties before you were promoted?" she prattled on.

"There are some things I shouldn't really discuss with you, Botan."

"Oh, I see… Well, thanks anyway…"

Hiei started to walk on then, and, after a few steps, Botan joined him, trudging through the snow down the hillside.

"That was pointless," he commented as they walked together.

"Well not entirely," she replied.

"Even you can't possibly put a positive spin on this complete waste of our collective time," Hiei said.

"Maybe the ice maidens didn't give us anything substantial to take back to Yukina to prove Inukasai isn't her brother, but we have enough clues to carry on with our search."

Hiei glanced at the ferry girl, hoping that the look on her face would help him decipher what she had meant by "search", but unfortunately she was wincing against the cold and wind to the point that it was almost impossible to try to read what was going on inside her erratic mind from her expression alone. He wanted to ask exactly what she thought they were "searching" for, but he was not looking forward to hearing her response.

"I think it's obvious what we have to do next," he began, turning his attention forward again.

He could not bring himself to watch her face as he told her the facts: he felt she needed to hear him state them, and even though her face was too contorted against the cold to show any emotion, he was sure that her disappointment would be obvious once he confirmed what he was sure she must already know to be true.

"Yes, of course," she said, much to his relief.

"Good, you understand this time," he said.

The last thing he had wanted to deal with as they descended the difficult path down the mountain and through the extreme weather conditions was enduring the same argument with her that he had suffered through upon leaving Inugoya. At least this time there was nowhere else she could propose they pointlessly visit, he told himself.

"What's the fastest route there?" she asked. "Should we be going this way? Wouldn't it make more sense for me to fly us down over the edge by the bridge to the ice village? Well, by the remains of the bridge to the ice village, that is."

Hiei was mildly impressed that she had both accepted what they must do next and where they must go and that she had even noticed that they were not actually travelling there by the shortest route.

"I don't trust your broken oar to fly us anywhere," he reminded her.

"How much time will we lose going this way?" she asked.

"We should still make it there before Yukina and Kuwabara arrive for their visit with Inukasai's family in Inugoya," he replied.

"How long before?"

"…What?"

"How long before? Remember we need time to get answers and take them all the way back to Inugoya before Yukina and Kuwabara get there. It's Monday already Hiei, and if we have to trudge through this snow on foot, the day will be over before we know it. We've lost half the week, we can't afford to mess about."

Hiei was ashamed to admit just how confused he was and he was even more ashamed to admit how curious he was: he could not tell if Botan's nosiness was starting to rub off on him or if it was just her insatiable zeal to find answers that was drawing him into her hair-brained schemes and leaving him believing that anything was possible.

"Despite plain common sense warning me against it, I'll bite: what the hell are you talking about?" he conceded.

"You said Kuwabara was planning to take Yukina to Inugoya on Friday, didn't you?" she responded, sounding frustrated, like she thought he was the one who was failing to understand both the direction of their journey and their conversation.

"Yes, and we should get there ourselves within two days," Hiei pointed out. "If today is Monday, we should be in Inugoya by Wednesday. Or Thursday morning if you want to go to those hot springs you were so determined to visit…"

"But we're not going to Inugoya yet! First we have to – ooh, I forgot about the hot springs! You know, the ice maidens did heal my wounds, but a nice soak in a hot spring would be very welcome, to both relax my muscles and to let me have a lovely bath."

"So then we're going to the hot springs and then we're going back to Inugoya."

"I'm so glad you remembered about the hot springs, Hiei! It'll be so nice to get a nice long, hot bath, to clean up, to relax my muscles and to ready ourselves for our journey to see the bandits."

Hiei stopped walking, but Botan continued on, quickly disappearing from his sight in the snowy conditions and dusky evening light. When he heard her start to talk, he walked briskly on again until he had caught up to her, falling into pace with her and glaring up at her angrily.

"After all, one of the bandits your father sold you to is bound to know something about your mother, right?"

Hiei growled, but Botan did not so much as look his way.

"They might even be able to tell us about the other ice maidens in the group your mother was a part of, and they might know something about Inukasai's mother: although perhaps not if she died before you were conceived… But it's worth a shot, right?" she continued obliviously. "And even if they can't tell us anything new about your mother, they should at least be able to tell us a little more about your father. You know Hiei, on the subject of your father–"

"My father is not a subject," Hiei quickly cut her off. "He is an object. He is an object of my hatred and an object unworthy of being mentioned."

"Have you ever met him?" Botan asked.

She looked over at Hiei from the corner of her eye, looking only a fraction as wary as he thought she ought to under the circumstances: nobody usually dared ask him about such private matters, and she was treading on very thin ice. In fact, Hiei thought bitterly, the ferry girl was almost literally treading on thin ice, as his rage was turning into demon energy that was sizzling through the snow around him with every step he took, turning snow into ice.

"Well no matter," she said with a shrug. "Let's see what the bandits you were sold to have to say. Now Hiei, I am working on the assumption that the bandits your father sold you to are the same bandits who raised you. Would that be correct?"

"We are not going anywhere near the bandits who raised me," Hiei warned.

It was Botan's turn to abruptly halt in her tracks, and Hiei stopped a step ahead of her, turning to glare over his shoulder at her.

"Hiei, I did already ask you if we were going in the right direction," she said sternly.

"We're not going there, Botan!" he snarled back at her.

"Why not?" she asked, planting her hands on her hips huffily. "Oh, I know! They're travelling bandits! You don't know exactly where they are because they move around!"

Hiei faltered slightly as he debated in his mind whether Botan's uncanny skills of deduction had led to her figuring out that the bandits who raised him were travellers or if she had simply made a fortuitously clever guess.

"Well Hiei, you know you could just use your jagan eye to find where they are," she said, looking as though she thought he was idiotic for not having thought of the same idea first.

"I'm not going to use my jagan to find those bastards because we are not going to visit them!" he firmly replied.

"Hiei, how do you expect us to continue with our mission if you just give up already?" she snapped back. "There's absolutely no way we endured carnivorous flowers, stinky pervert dogs and nosy pervert ice maidens just to crawl back to the living world with our tails between our legs and let that dog in the manger Inukasai steal your entire life from you!"

Hiei gulped involuntarily. Botan actually looked like she was ready to literally physically fight him to prove her point: and, more disturbingly, the point she was so vehemently fighting for was protecting his best interests.

"Nobody's ever done that before," he muttered.

"Done what?" she asked.

"Cared."

* * *

Botan gasped and brought a hand up to her chest. She knew the look on her face was not the sort of look Hiei enjoyed being on the receiving end of but she was incapable of disguising either her shock or her sympathy. She relaxed a little when he turned away from her and she assumed he was going to continue onwards. She thought that she would let him get just far enough ahead of her that he would not be able to make out her expression through the freezing fog and snow flurries before following him at a distance; but she quickly forgot that plan when he turned around to face her again. She quickly tried to neutralise her expression, tried to look indifferent, tried to pretend that she had not even heard Hiei's last words.

"You look ill," he commented.

"Maybe we should find a place to camp for the night," she replied.

She had not made the suggestion because she was tired and looking for a place to rest, rather she was grasping at straws to find a reason to focus their attention and efforts elsewhere. She was also hoping that, after a night's sleep, she might be able to convince Hiei to continue on their quest.

"You do realise it's still morning?" he said.

Botan squinted up through the falling snow at the dark sky overhead.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"We just had breakfast," he reminded her.

She nodded.

"Fair point."

"Unless you're too weak to continue."

"No."

"Well then."

Hiei turned away again and Botan allowed herself to relax again.

"If we continue this way for another few hours or so we will join the main mountain path," he said, keeping his head turned away as he spoke. "There is less snow there, it's not so cold, and we can connect to the route over to the hot springs."

Botan brightened a little then and stepped forward to stand alongside Hiei.

"That sounds good," she said. "Let's go."

Hiei mumbled something indecipherable and then trudged onwards through the snow. Botan continued on at his side, a series of ideas running through her mind as they walked. She could not help but notice that whilst she was still dressed in the new clothes she had gained in the ice village, Hiei was still walking without his scarf or cloak, and he was starting to look quite cold. She glanced down at her bag, silently wondering if she had anything left in there that she could offer him to help him keep warm: but she thought that the only contents of her bag suitable for offering protection against the cold were her own clothes that the ice maidens had removed for her, and she doubted Hiei would appreciate her offering him her clothes. She knew Hiei well enough to know that he would rather suffer physical discomfort than risk a blow to his pride, and so she tried not to notice how cold he looked and she tried not to think about how uncomfortable he must be. When she struggled to take her mind off the matter, she decided to do the only thing she could think of under the circumstances to distract herself.

"Did you know your mother was part of a group of girls who went out looking for an adventure?"

Botan waited for Hiei to answer and when he did not, she sensed that he was maybe displeased with her choice of topic of conversation.

"You said you didn't want to talk about your father," she pointed out. "You didn't say we couldn't talk about your mother."

"In case you missed the point of what was discussed during our brief time in the ice village, I was thrown out of the village shortly after my birth, and my mother died shortly after that," Hiei replied. "During the brief few minutes I was allowed to be in the same room as her – immediately following my birth – I didn't really get much of a chance to discuss things like her favourite hobbies with her."

Botan growled in frustration.

"That's not what I meant!" she snapped irritably. "And you don't have to be so sarcastic about it! I know you never knew your mother, but you did say you had visited the village before and spoken to someone there about her. I just wondered if the subject of how she was part of a group of adventurous girls had come up during your last visit?"

"No," Hiei quietly replied.

"No you didn't know about it before now?" Botan asked.

"I didn't know about it until now."

"Don't you think it's curious?"

"Not really."

"Well it is."

"I don't see how."

"Well, doesn't it make you wonder if your mother chose to be a part of such a group and their activities or if she ended up being influenced by them?"

Botan caught Hiei giving her a warning glare and she knew that she was perhaps pushing him a little too far, but she was curious to know if he had come to the same conclusions that she had upon hearing that Hina had been part of a group of like-minded individuals.

"Haven't you ever wondered about your mother's past, Hiei?" she asked carefully. "I don't know how long the ice village has existed, but I'm guessing it's been there for hundreds of years, and in all that time, only eight other ice maidens have ever done what your mother did. It must have been difficult for her to make the decisions she did."

"There were probably a lot more than nine of them."

Botan frowned and tilted her head.

"But there were only nine emikos born," she pointed out.

"Yes because only nine of the ice maidens who ever fell pregnant with an emiko both made it back to the ice village and survived their pregnancy."

Botan's face fell.

"Still want to talk about it?" Hiei asked.

"I still think it's curious," she replied.

"There's nothing curious about it," he said.

"Yes there is. Look at how nosy Nanako and her friends were: but you don't see them forming a gang and going on adventures outside of their village. Do you think the others knew that your mother and her friends left the village? Did they sneak out or did they get permission to leave? What happened when they came back? Did they come back?"

"Nanako and her friends are too young, give them time. My mother obviously came back to the ice village: how else would I have been born there?"

"Don't you wonder how the other emikos' mothers found their way back? Don't you wonder why they went back? If they knew their babies would be cast out and that they themselves would be shunned by the rest of their clan, why did they go back?"

"I don't know and I don't care."

"Well you should."

"It's really not relevant to what we're trying to do."

"But it is. Don't you think a woman who has grown up in the ice village, living that sheltered life, and then obsessing over men the way Nanako was back there, would choose someone a little more… Suave than Inuyusha as her lover?"

"That's almost funny. If it wasn't true and it wasn't so pathetic, it might actually be amusing."

"It just seems strange. As a girl who has spent a lot of time thinking about romance herself, I can't understand why any girl would want anything to do with that dirty old dog demon."

"That's because you don't understand how "romance" works here in demon world."

Botan tried not to smile as the idea occurred to her that she might be able to use her conversation with Hiei about the ice maidens to push him into talking to her about her own lovelife.

"Romance doesn't follow any rules, Hiei," she tried. "Not in spirit world, living world or even here in demon world."

"If by "romance" you mean irrational flights of fancy suffered by the simple-minded then I suppose you might be right," he replied. "But when it comes to choosing lovers, there are a very clear set of rules of standards, and that applies across all three worlds."

Botan fought harder not to smile as her interest piqued.

"Really?" she said, unable to keep the fascination from her tone.

"Yes," Hiei replied.

"Well then explain why one of your mother's friends chose Inuyusha as a lover?"

Botan felt certain that Hiei would back out of their conversation at that point: knowing how sensitive a subject both the ice maidens and the dog demons were for him, she was sure he would either say something cutting to end the conversation or else ignore her. And so she was shocked when he did in fact reply.

"It's simple. He has two of the three required qualities."

Botan scrunched up her face.

"And those are rules that apply in the human world as well as the demon," Hiei added.

"I honestly can't think of two qualities Inuyusha has that make him in any way desirable," Botan confessed.

"The qualities required differ from one world to the next: but within each world they are consistent," Hiei replied.

"I had no idea you knew so much about human relations."

"It's not something I tried to find out about. It's just something that's plainly obvious."

"…Not to me, apparently…"

"I find that hard to believe."

Botan arched her eyebrows expectant of further explanation for Hiei's last remark, but he offered none.

"Alright then Mister Smarty Pants," she said. "Explain it to me."

"There's nothing to explain," Hiei replied. "It's one of the most basic concepts of life."

"Well since I'm death, I don't understand it."

"Hn, that's a novel argument."

"And the truth. So start explaining."

Hiei looked about himself as though he expected to find the answer lying somewhere on the barren, snowy hillside, before growling out a sigh of obvious exasperation.

"Fine," he conceded. "I'll explain what I know."

Botan again fought to hide her enthusiasm for fear that Hiei would cease talking if he knew just how captivating she found his speech to be.

"In demon world, there are three qualities considered necessary in a lover," he continued. "Strength, wealth and influence. And that's the order they matter in too. An S-class demon is far more attractive than a D-class demon. A rich A-class demon is as attractive as a poor S-class demon. A tribe leader with no money and a low power ranking can still be considered desirable just because he has such influence over others."

"Like Inuyusha."

"Exactly like Inuyusha. Now do you understand?"

"I understand nothing."

Hiei stopped walking and Botan stopped at his side. He looked angry, though she could not really understand why: surely he realised what he had just said was contentious, and her stubborn reaction ought not to be surprising to him.

"What you're talking about isn't romance," she reminded him. "What you're talking about is logic and practicality. Romance is neither logical nor practical!"

"I never said I was talking about romance," Hiei flatly replied. "I already agreed with you that romance isn't logical or practical. I was talking about reality, not fantasy."

"Okay, I accept that what you were talking about happens," Botan conceded. "But romance overrides it all! When someone falls in love, logic and practicality are thrown out the window!"

"I wouldn't know anything about that," Hiei said.

"Because you've never fallen madly in love with someone?"

"No."

"Right, well, let me tell you that… Wait… No you've never fallen madly in love with someone or no you have?"

"…What?"

"Well… The way you answered, it could have meant either outcome…"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I said "you've never fallen madly in love with someone" and you said "no". Were you saying no to agree or disagree with what I said?"

"I wouldn't ever allow myself do something so pointless as "fall madly in love with someone"."

"It's not something you have any control over. It can happen to anyone at any time. That's what makes it so wonderful."

"Maybe it's wonderful for you. For me it's just pointless."

"Because you think you're too cool and too in control to do something so reckless."

"I do reckless things all the time. I just don't do pointless things."

"Love isn't pointless!"

"Maybe not for you."

"I refuse to believe that you are incapable of loving someone, Hiei."

"You're looking at this from the wrong angle."

Botan started to argue back but stopped short when she realised that Hiei was looking at her with that strange look on his face again – that look he had been wearing on and off ever since Inukasai's arrival. She took it to mean that something else was going on, and when she took a moment to consider his last statement, she suddenly realised that she had not really been listening to what he had been saying to her. She had already reached the conclusion that he would be dismissive of romance because he would think it was frivolous and he was too in control and too indifferent to be affected by it: she had never considered that maybe he had entirely different reasons for not wanting to talk about it.

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Hiei and Botan continue their journey, discussing many things along the way, and getting one step closer to the inevitable next stop on their adventure: a visit to the bandits who raised Hiei. **Chapter 15 – Bite Me**

**A/N: **Thanks again for all the reviews, it's always nice to hear how people are thinking through some of the themes of the story. I'm getting very close to going away, so there will only be a few more updates before then – but I'm trying not to leave the story at a major cliffhanger, since it will be sitting that way for up to four weeks!


	15. Bite Me

**A/N:** "Takeo" means "violent warrior male"

* * *

**Chapter 15 – Bite Me**

"Let's keep moving. We're wasting time again, and as you well know, we don't have time to waste: especially not if we have to track down Takeo and his men before we go back."

The ferry girl's face changed and Hiei tried to contain his relief. He had no desire whatsoever to revisit Takeo and his gang of travelling bandits, but in that moment, he was willing to agree to just about anything rather than continue the conversation Botan had been goading him into. He was almost certain she already knew the miserable truth about his life and that all her prying was really only her way of getting him to fill in minor gaps in her knowledge rather than the innocent questions of someone entirely naïve to the subject.

"Is Takeo one of the bandits your father sold you to?" she asked.

"Yes," Hiei tightly replied.

"Right," she said with a nod of her head. "Did you use your jagan eye to find where he is?"

"I don't need to," Hiei admitted. "His bandits are currently squatting in an abandoned temple by the salt flats. They've been there the last twice I've worked a patrol."

Botan nodded and started to walk on, which was an even greater relief. Hiei followed after her, and together they continued down the mountainside in silence. Walking at a pace the ferry girl could keep up with through snow was painful for Hiei, but it was proving to be a useful stalling tactic and the difficult conditions and difficult journey would hopefully keep her quiet. In the back of his mind he was trying to think of a way to convince her that she should go back to spirit world, but he was struggling to find any logical argument to present her with. It seemed wrong to just order her to leave, especially after everything she had endured over the past few days and all at his expense, and as diplomacy had never been Hiei's forte, he was left debating the matter in his mind. His only consolation was that Botan did stay quiet and left him to stew in his own thoughts for some time, only talking again when they had moved far enough down the mountain that the snow was getting shallower, and the rough and rocky terrain underfoot was starting to become more pronounced, turning the walk into more of a scramble.

"Can we stop for a break?" she asked.

"No," Hiei replied.

"But my legs are tired and we've been walking for hours!"

"It hasn't been that long and we still have a long way to go."

"I don't remember it being this long on the way up…"

"You were unconscious on the way up."

"Oh… Right…"

They walked on a little further and Hiei hoped that he would enjoy at least another hour of silence: but unfortunately he did not even get a whole minute without the ferry girl talking.

"About that…" she said, her voice so soft it was almost carried away on the still fairly bracing winds around them. "This is a pretty tough journey… The mountain is steep, the snow is deep, the wind is difficult to walk through, it keeps snowing, there's a sort of fog in the air still…"

"That's all a part of how the ice maidens help keep their home so inaccessible," Hiei told her.

"Yes, of course, that does make sense, but still…"

"Make a point or stop talking. You're wasting energy that you're going to need to make it down the mountain."

"I just can't believe you carried me over all of this yesterday. Aren't you tired?"

"No."

"Oh."

Hiei enjoyed another very brief respite before the ferry girl continued their (what seemed to be) pointless conversation.

"How did you manage it?"

He hoped that if he ignored her, she might not bother him any further.

"It's such a long way, the path is so uneven, I was a dead weight and you had my bag too–"

"Forget about it."

"I can't!"

"Well you should."

"It can't have been easy for you."

"My physical strength and endurance is so vastly superior to yours, I don't expect you to understand."

"Oh, I wasn't talking about that aspect of it any more. I meant it can't have been easy for you to take me to the ice village like you did. What happened when you got there? Did they send you back out after you arrived there with me?"

"That's not important. Focus on walking. You don't want to spend a whole day in this weather, do you?"

Hiei thought it vaguely odd that the ferry girl did not answer him, especially when he had asked a question – not that he had asked it intending to initiate further conversation, but she was never the type to leave a question hanging in the air unanswered – but he decided not to question his luck, and instead kept his head down. After a few seconds more, when she was still suspiciously quiet, Hiei glanced in her direction, doing a distinct double-take and stumbling to a halt as he realised that she was no longer at his side. He glanced about the bleak hillside, feeling more panicked than he thought possible as he tried to locate her. He expected to find her collapsed in the snow after having tripped over a rock or lost her balance against a particularly cruel blast of wind: but what he instead found was far worse.

"What the hell are you doing?" he yelled, hoping his voice would carry out over the snow and wind and reach the ferry girl's ears.

He was unsure if she had heard his words or even the sound of his voice when all she did was look his way and smile and wave at him. She was, inexplicably and illogically, sitting on her battered oar and floating a few feet off the ground, clearly struggling to both kept herself airborne and in place against the wind buffeting against her. As she yelped, her legs kicking up and her hands gripping her oar more tightly to steady herself against another sudden gust of wind, Hiei wondered when and how she had recovered the damn thing. The last time he had seen her damaged oar had been when he had stepped over it as it lay on the hillside where she had crashed it. He had deliberately not taken it with him and he had deliberately not told her as much in the hope that she would just assume it was missing or else had been beyond salvation following their accident.

"We can move faster this way."

Hiei narrowed his eyes – partly because he was getting snowflakes in his eyes but mostly because he was sneering at Botan – and watched the ferry girl swaying through the air along a juddering, fragile flight-path that brought her to a point almost directly above his head.

"Are you out of your tiny mind?" he asked, not even bothering to raise his voice as he was sure she would be able to understand him even if she did not hear his words.

"Which direction are we going?" she asked, leaving him wondering if she had heard or understood him after all.

"Down the mountain?" he sarcastically replied.

"Yes, but which way?" she responded.

"Down?"

She sighed and lowered herself until she was almost eye-level with him.

"I can fly above the clouds and get out of this weather," she said. "But once I'm up there, I won't be able to see which way I'm going."

"Now I understand," Hiei said.

"Oh good," Botan said.

"You're insane."

"What?"

"Do you remember what happened the last time you flew on that stick?"

"That was a unique incident. It won't happen again."

"You don't know that."

"I fly above the clouds all the time, I do know that!"

"And the object you use to fly is broken."

"So does that mean you don't want to come with me?"

Hiei narrowed his eyes again – though this time not because of the snow – and let out a long, low growl.

* * *

Hiei was not really sure how he ended up on the ferry girl's oar, nor was he sure when he had decided that eating the dried food she had produced from her bag was a good idea, but, as the cloud cover below his feet began to thin and snippets of the landscape below revealed that they were still a long way from the divide in the mountain path, the sight of the snowy landscape made him strangely pleased to be flying and relieved to have something to snack on. He was not even sure what it was that he was eating: it had been cured so extensively it was the texture of thin leather. And the colour of thin leather. And it tasted like salted leather. But the chewiness of the food was keeping Botan's mouth busy doing something other than talking at him and the saltiness was satisfying, and so he chewed on, keeping his eyes down on the land below.

The ride on Botan's battered oar was not exactly smooth; although the shakiness was less noticeable than it had been when he had first boarded alongside her. He could not tell if that was because she had learned how to better control the damaged oar, if it was because the wind was weakening or if it was a combination of the two, but it was a little easier not to be anticipating another crash landing when the pilot seemed more in control.

"Is it much further?" Botan asked through a mouthful of food.

"Another hour I think," Hiei replied.

"It will be so nice to get a nice long soak in the hot springs," she commented.

"You said that already," Hiei reminded her. "Many times over."

"It's just such a pity I don't have any clean underwear… I feel it would have been impertinent and a little awkward to ask the ice maidens for a set of clean underwear, but they did give me these clothes and they had no inhibitions talking to me about far more personal matters… Hm, perhaps I should have said something. Unless I can get some clothing supplies in this area we are heading to?"

"What are you talking about? You have a spare pair of panties in your bag."

"Inuyusha took all my underwear. Or did you forget? Seems odd that you could forget something like that. I don't think I'll ever forget it. Just thinking about it now makes me finally understand what Kuwabara means when he says he needs "brain bleach" after listening to Yusuke talk about the contents of those lewd magazines he likes to read."

"Inuyusha didn't take all your underwear. He left one pair of panties."

Hiei stuffed the remainder of the dry, salty foodstuff into his mouth and began the laborious process of chewing it into something digestible. As he chewed, it occurred to him that he had been the last to speak and that Botan had, surprisingly and uncharacteristically, not answered him. He was starting to notice that the only times she did not respond verbally to something he had said was when she was either up to something nefarious or he had said something she had found so shocking, she was too overcome to talk. As he slowly moved his eyes to her, sitting at his side on her oar, he started to suspect the latter: her mouth was hanging open and he could see every soggy, half-chewed morsel of food she had been working on for the past few minutes.

"What?" he grunted.

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"Don't spit food at me," Hiei replied.

The ferry girl purposefully swallowed the contents of her mouth and then adopted a sterner look.

"Don't change the subject," she retaliated. "How do you know that? And if he did leave me with one pair of panties, why didn't I find them when I was looking through my bag?"

"You didn't look hard enough."

"When were you raking through my bag?"

"When you spilled the whole thing over the mountainside after you crashed us into a rock!"

"I didn't crash deliberately! I was badly hurt! I wouldn't do something like that to myself on purpose!"

"Just make sure you don't do it again."

"It was an accident, I was tired, I couldn't see where I was going, I didn't know where I was going and it was an accident!"

"Be more mindful."

"Maybe I could have been more mindful if I hadn't had someone sleeping all over me."

"I wasn't sleeping all over you! I fell on you when you crashed!"

"You were lying on my lap for hours, Hiei."

Hiei swallowed the contents of his mouth and narrowed his eyes at Botan, feeling both surprised and irritated when she copied his action.

"I thought you'd be happy to know you had a change of underwear after you were obsessing over it so much earlier," he pointed out.

"I am happy!" she moodily replied.

"So I can see," Hiei sarcastically replied.

"I'm landing now because I'm thirsty and I can see water!"

Hiei grunted and grasped at the oar either side of himself as Botan suddenly carried out her erratic words and plunged downwards through an especially thick clump of cloud. She descended with alarming speed before coming to a surprisingly smooth stop by the edge of a small pool, fed by thin veins of water from the rocks above it. Hiei leapt off the oar an instant before it disappeared, but he barely noticed that he had almost fallen off, his attention instead focused on the size of the pool – which was relatively tiny and obscured from view by the rocks and lichen around its edges – and the sky immediately overhead, which was so cloudy he could not see the part of the sky they had been flying through before they had started their descent.

"I'll take enough to last us," Botan commented as she began filling a flask in the pool.

"You saw this from up there?" he asked her.

"Yes," she replied, her tone vaguely sarcastic. "That's why I said I was coming here for water and that's why I came here. For water."

"Through the clouds and from all the way up there?" Hiei asked, ignoring her mordancy.

"I can see things, Hiei."

"From all the way up there? Through the clouds?"

When Botan paused, her hands and the flask still plunged into the pool of icy cold water, Hiei started to realise his mistake. She slowly turned her head to look back up over her shoulder at him, revealing a sly and slightly smug smirk that he had already known would be on her face.

"Are you impressed?" she asked.

"No," he lied.

"I see everything when I'm flying," she flippantly replied, turning back to her task. "Everything."

"Of course you do. You're always looking for things."

"Yes, I am very inquisitive."

"Interfering was the word I was thinking of."

"I like to think of it as a gift."

"That it's never gotten you killed is your only gift."

Hiei turned from the ferry girl and began surveying his surroundings. The mountain that preceded the glacial village was even bleaker than the village itself, even at their lower altitude, where there was only a sparse covering of snow and hints of plant life were starting to emerge. The divide in the path was closer than he had thought – apparently he was not as good at judging distance or direction from the air as he had given himself credit for, and he was certainly nowhere near to Botan's skill level – which meant that soon they would be able to stop again. As he thought about just that, Hiei realised that he needed to find a way to convince the ferry girl to continue the next part of their journey on foot, as at least that way he would be able to get his bearings and regain some control over their situation again.

Though he felt that he had long since lost control of both his current situation and his own life. Fate was a funny thing.

"Right I think that should be enough to keep us going for a while," Botan said as she stuffed four flasks of water into her bag.

Hiei watched her summon her oar and hang the bag of the end of the handle as she sat down onto it. Once she was settled, she turned to him and smiled gently.

"I'll continue on foot," he said. "Just in case."

"Just in case what?" she asked, her smiled faltering. "Come on, don't be silly. Just come with me."

Hiei hesitated just long enough to wonder if Botan's last statement was oddly relevant to more than just the prospect of flying with her – if in fact just going with her to demon world in the first place had been silly – before making a begrudging grunting noise and then leaping onto her oar and settling at her side, all the while trying to ignore the way she looked far too pleased with herself.

"Fly lower this time," he ordered brusquely as they started to rise through the air. "I need visibility of the landscape."

"I can see everything from up in the sky," she said.

"I need visibility of the landscape," he repeated.

He had deliberately put an extra emphasis on the "I" the second time around, which he felt was enough of a concession to convey to the ferry girl that he did not share her preternatural aerial visual skills. Thankfully she either understood his problem or just decided to follow his instruction as she stopped ascending once they were comfortably clear of the rocky landscape, and Hiei was silently glad that he had not needed to literally explain every word of what he was thinking to Botan in order for her to do the right thing.

Maybe it was that thing Nanako had mentioned back in the ice village: how a married couple understand each other without the need for spoken words.

* * *

Botan was surprised at just how long the mountain path was; but up ahead she could see what looked like the divide in the path Hiei had mentioned. The wind was lessening and the air temperature was slowly but continually rising, and the cloud cover was thinning, making the entire experience less challenging. Travelling away from the storms and the cold and dead landscape was actually quite an exhilarating experience; which only made her wonder how daunting travelling into the worst of the storms and the cold and dead landscape must have been for Hiei the day before. But, despite how difficult the journey must have been for him – through the snow and the storms and carrying both Botan and her bag – he was still darting about the hillside below her as she flew, as if he had not spent the previous day doing something that really ought to have been exhausting to even the toughest of physical beings.

Seeing Hiei's determination was reassuring: because, as she flew after him alone, without his conversation to distract her from her own thoughts, Botan could not help but wonder how Koenma was going to react when he found out that she was not doing as he had asked of her. On the surface at least she did appear to be following his orders, which was the impression she appeared to have given the ice village liaison officer. Hopefully the liaison officer would report back to Koenma that Botan was doing what he had ordered her to – follow Hiei around to observe his actions and take notes to report back to spirit world with – and hopefully that would buy her more time. It was already well into Monday, and she could tell by the seemingly neverending expanse of barren mountain landscape ahead of her that the journey to the salt flats would require at least one more night in demon world, which meant it would be Tuesday before she even reached Takeo and his gang. And even if she and Hiei managed to successfully get proof of Inukasai's identity on their next stop, by the time they relayed the information back to Yukina, Botan already knew she would have gone past her Friday deadline for reporting back to Koenma.

She felt strangely detached then. Botan had never thought it possible for a ferry girl to ascend to a position on the spirit world council, and so learning that the ice village liaison officer was a former ferry girl had both renewed her hope that she could achieve such an elevated position and reminded her that once Koenma learned of her insubordination, she was likely to spend the rest of her existence as a ferry girl. It was sickening to come so close to reaching a dream goal just to have it pulled away indefinitely at the last possible hurdle. The alternative, however, was unthinkable: she could never betray a friend, and the task Koenma had assigned her required her to do exactly that. She was so absorbed in her ambivalence that she overshot Hiei before realising that he had stopped below her. Hurriedly awakening to her surroundings again, she turned in the air and swooped down to join him, slipping off her oar to stand alongside him on a length of path with only a faint dusting of snow.

"Is this the divide in the path?" she asked, looking over each of her shoulders. "Which way do we go?"

"The hot springs are this way," he replied, pointing to one side of himself along a path that ran around the side of the mountain.

"Okay," she said, summoning her oar again.

"Walk with me."

Botan stopped short, one arm extended at an awkward angle in front of herself as she had been midway through swinging her oar around to sit onto it again.

"Because that's what you want, isn't it?" Hiei asked her.

Botan banished her oar and slowly let her arm move back down to her side. Deep down she did want to walk with Hiei because talking to him stopped her from dwelling on her own conflicting thoughts and stopped her from worrying about what the days ahead would hold for her: but she had to wonder how Hiei knew that. She knew that he could have read her mind, but she had always thought that he was only capable of reading surface thoughts, and she had not been actively thinking that she would rather walk with him than fly alone. She contemplated asking him about the matter – because she was concerned that if he had been reading her thoughts, he may also have seen why she was so in need of the distraction of idle conversation – and she knew that he would probably answer her if she worded her query in a flattering manner (like "has your mastery of the jagan increased that you can now read subconscious thoughts and desires?") but he had that odd look on his face again, and she did not feel able to pester him about the matter.

"Yes," she said instead. "Let's walk together."

Botan walked a little stiffly at first, partly because she felt a little awkward and partly because her legs were a little stiff anyway after sitting on her oar for so long.

"I don't know that going to meet with Takeo is going to yield any worthwhile answers," Hiei commented as they walked.

Botan was surprised that he had been the one to break the ice, but as his words sounded like a diplomatic attempt to discourage her from continuing with him to the salt flats, she brushed the thought aside and quickly responded.

"You don't know that it won't, and since the ice maidens weren't any help, we have to exhaust every other avenue at our disposal," she said.

"You make it sound like a tireless quest," he replied.

"It is," she said.

"For me."

"And for me."

"You do know you're not obliged to continue on with me."

"Yes I do know that. But we can't stop now."

"You're tenacious."

"I am when it comes to finding answers, yes."

"Why? Just because you can't control your own curiosity?"

"No, because it's the right thing to do."

"Interfering and almost dying to find information is the right thing to do?"

"Yes."

"Why do you think that way?"

Botan could not help from glancing at Hiei in an interested and vaguely amused manner: it was unlike him to be so chatty or to ask so many questions.

"It's something I feel and believe in," she said. "But it's also something I was taught during my training in spirit world."

"Spirit world taught you to be nosy," Hiei said. "Well that makes more sense."

"It's not being nosy!" Botan snapped haughtily. "It's about eating all those apples before the snake gets them!"

"...What?"

"It's a metaphor."

"For what? Your slipping sanity?"

Botan sighed and shook her head.

"I suppose you've never heard the story of the snake and the apple, it's part of a lesson they teach in spirit world, so I doubt it's something anyone cares for in demon world," she said. "The story goes that a man and woman live in paradise, but there is an apple tree there. They are told not to eat the apples, but one day a snake offers one of the apples to the woman, and she eats it. Because she eats the apple, she then learns about so many things she never knew about before."

Botan waited for Hiei to comment, and when he did not after what she deemed to be a reasonable amount of time, she turned her head to look at him.

"You're an idiot," he told her as their eyes met.

"How so?" she asked, feeling more than a little perturbed by his response.

"Because you've entirely missed the point of that story," he replied.

"No I haven't!" she argued. "The point of the story is that there will always be snakes – like Inukasai – who try to stop you from eating apples – or learning the truth about life – but you have to ignore the snakes and eat the apples!"

"That's not the lesson at all. Did you fail that class by any chance?"

"Yes I did, but it wasn't because I didn't know enough about stealing apples from snakes!"

"The story goes that the man and woman live in paradise, and they have everything they want. The only rule they must obey is not to eat the apples. The snake keeps trying to tempt them, but if they can resist, they can live forever in paradise. They surrender to temptation and they are rejected from paradise. It's a parable about the follies of curiosity."

"I prefer my version."

"Your version is a gross misunderstanding and literal simplification of a metaphorical tale of morality."

"How do you even know what the tale is about?"

"I've read a lot of stolen material from spirit world."

"Oh... I see... Well, I still prefer my version."

"Hn."

Botan almost tripped over when she realised that Hiei was smiling at her side.

"What?" she asked him. "What are you thinking?"

"So if you had the choice of living in eternal paradise, you would chose to eat the apple and know about evil rather than live forever happy in ignorance?" he responded.

"Wouldn't you?" she shot back.

"Well yes, I would," he said. "Of course I would. But surely you, as an ambassador of spirit world and a pacifist, would choose the life of comfort and ignorance?"

"Hiei! Listen to yourself!

"Why are you offended? Because I suggested you'd choose ignorance over knowledge for the sake of an easy existence?"

"No, because you called me a pacifist. Clearly you don't know me as well as I thought you did."

Botan smiled quite smugly to herself as she was speaking, feeling sure that she was delivering a sharp rebuttal: but her smile vanished when she finished talking and Hiei made a grunting noise that sounded dangerously close to a snort of laughter.

"Are you feeling alright?" she asked him.

"I'll feel better once I get rid of Inukasai," he replied.

Botan nodded slowly, finding his answer more typical and his tone back to its usual flatness.

"Yes, I suppose," she agreed. "Still, I would have liked to have found out which of the ice maidens was Inukasai's mother. I really have to wonder what sort of girl would want anything to do with Inuyusha."

"We already went over this," Hiei replied, his tone slightly tighter. "It's not about his charm, wit or good looks, it's about his power, wealth and influence."

"Still doesn't make any sense," Botan complained. "An ice maiden shouldn't care about any of those things. They're raised not to."

"They're also raised not to desire or even so much as think about men."

"All the more reason why they shouldn't go for someone just because he's powerful, rich and influential."

"They all go for someone who's powerful, rich and influential. That's just the way it is."

"You don't know that for sure, least of all with the ice maidens."

"I do know that for sure. That's just the way it is."

"Not in my experience."

"You – by your own admission – don't have any experience. Therefore your opinion is only: an opinion. It isn't fact."

"It's not a universal rule though."

"It is in demon world."

"I bet it's not. I bet we could find exceptions to the rule."

"I never have."

"Maybe you haven't looked hard enough."

"Attraction here is based on power, influence and wealth. Take away any one and the ability to attract a mate is lessened. Take away all three and the ability the attract a mate vanishes altogether."

"Surely not."

"Just as a delicate little ice maiden would choose a hairy, unclean ball of blubber like Inuyusha because of his A-class power ranking, his influence as a tribe leader and his wealth as a tribe leader, no woman in demon world would give a second thought to a lower D-class penniless loner bandit who wilfully sacrificed what strength he did have for knowledge. You see, you story about choosing knowledge over a better life fits this story too."

Botan stopped walking, watching Hiei as he continued along the path. His last words had sounded incredibly bitter and as though he had been referencing his own life: but when had he ever been a "lower D-class penniless loner bandit"? Seeing the square-shouldered, stiff-kneed way Hiei was striding along the path he definitely looked offended, but Botan could not understand why. Not only had his description not now – or indeed ever – applied to his own life, she was sure he could never have wanted for female companionship. He was far too confident and sure of himself to have known the rejection that she had. She made a small noise of confusion and then hurried after him, catching up to him and falling into pace alongside him, whereupon they continued the rest of the journey to the hot springs in silence.

* * *

Looking up at the dark sky overhead, Botan knew that she probably should have left the water much sooner: but she almost welcomed any ill effects from soaking in a hot spring for far longer than any sane person would ever recommend doing so. It was so nice to be warm, to be clean and to be relaxed, that it was difficult to find the motivation to move, and the onset of nightfall just seemed like one more excuse not to move: it was too late and too dark to carry on the journey anyway. She sank a little lower into the water, only stopping when the waterline reached her top lip and her nose was barely clear enough to allow her to still breathe. At that level, the steam and heat haze in the air around her made visibility on the already dark hillside even more restricted; but not so much so that she did not notice something moving by the opposite end of the pool she was bathing in.

Botan started to lift herself up, but stopped once her head and neck was clear of the water, remembering then that if she left the water she would be confronting a potential attacker naked. As she tried to consider whether or not it would be safe to call for Hiei, her eyes adjusted to the dark and liquefied air just enough for her to make out what she was looking at, and her mind went blank. After a moment of thinking nothing, the first thought that did occur to her was that she should really have expected to see the sight that she was now beholding, as she was looking in the direction of the divide between the pool she was bathing in and the one Hiei had said he was going to use. It seemed slightly odd that, of all the parts of the pool he could have exited from, he had chosen to lift himself up to sit on the rocks between her pool and his – surely sitting up at one of the edges by dry land would have made more sense than balancing himself between two bodies of water – and the oddity of his positioning at first struck Botan as a cause for concern. She thought that perhaps something sinister was approaching and he had lifted himself up where she could see him so that he could signal to her to look out for the danger.

But something seemed amiss, and any sense of panic she might otherwise have felt gave way to curiosity. She carefully felt around the floor of the pool with her feet before stepping away from the edge, keeping herself submerged from the neck down. She kept squinting as she slowly crossed the pool, trying desperately to focus on what was so amiss; and the moment she realised what it was, she stopped short and had to swallow back a cry of surprise. Standing in the centre of the pool, her eyes wide and unblinking, Botan tried to tell herself that she was somehow mistaken. But, she thought as she still found herself unable to blink, Hiei's pants were very high-waisted, and if he had them on, it would be obvious even from a distance. The fact that he was still dripping wet also lent weight to the argument that he was sitting on the rocky pool wall naked, but there was still a large part of her that felt more comfortable denying it. She assumed that he did not know she could see him – because surely he would have covered himself up if he did – and she then found herself terrified that he might turn around at any moment, see her staring and think that she was some sort of Peeping Tom. She turned her head away, turning almost fully around on the spot before loudly clearing her throat in a way that she hoped would alert him to her presence. She waited a moment and then cautiously glanced over her shoulder: whereupon she found Hiei still sitting on the wall, still in the exact same position and still in the exact same state of undress.

She tried humming a tune as loudly as she could for the best part of a minute before checking over her shoulder again, her tune ending in a grunt of surprise and mild irritation when she found that he was still unaffected. She turned away again and pouted in defeat. It was not like he was facing her, she thought. It was not as though she had really seen anything that she had not seen before – in fact, she had seen more that time Shizuru had dared her and Keiko to sneak into the locker rooms during the dark tournament – but it was still the principle of the matter. She tried humming louder, the noise coming out as more of a high-pitched, atonal whine than anything tuneful. Once she had reached the point where her throat was aching, she stopped, caught her breath, and then turned around.

"Was that you making that noise? I thought I had a gnat stuck in my ear."

Botan pouted again, this time feeling sure that Hiei was mocking her. He was sitting facing away from her, but he had turned his head to look back over his shoulder at her, and he was definitely still naked and making no effort to cover himself up.

"I just wanted you to know that I'm here," she told him.

"I hadn't forgotten that," he muttered, turning his head away again.

"I'm getting out of the water now," she added.

"You probably should, you've been in there far too long."

Botan stuck out her tongue at the back of Hiei's head and then paused long enough to see if he would react before accepting that he was not watching her in any way. She then slunk over to the exit point farthest from where he was sitting and, after one more backward glance to confirm that he wasn't watching her, she slipped out of the water and began hurriedly pulling on her clothes again. Dismissing how awful it felt wrapping a fleece-lined silk kimono around wet skin, she turned to her bag to commence setting up her tent. As she sighted the bag, and saw its diminished size, she was suddenly struck by a vision of the tent, as she had left it, set-up by the edge of a forest, far back on the other side of the mountain she was still descending.

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Hiei and Botan journey on, and along the way, they meet Hiei's mother, who had sensed their approach and set out to meet them; though she's a little confused when she hears that her son has married. Together all three reach the temple and Hiei's former gang of bandits, where a hearty reunion is on the cards. **Chapter 16 – Thieves in the Temple**


End file.
